African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
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AFRICAN INDABA
Dedicated to the People and Wildlife of Africa
Trophy Hunting, Hunting Trophies and Trophy Recording
Volume 5 – Number 3 Special Issue
May 2007
A Joint Project of CIC and African Indaba for the 54th CIC General Assembly in Belgrade/Serbia
Trophy Hunting: How I see it!
By Dieter Schramm, President CIC International Council for
Game and Wildlife Conservation
The trophies from my last Central African Hunt were overdue
for many months already – finally, the taxidermist called ”your
trophies arrived – but forget it – the buffalo skulls were overcooked, the bone is porous, black, rotten, the bosses have
shrunk, there’s no way I can save them….!”
Why was I so shocked, why indeed? Was it the financial loss
– no, not really. Was it the loss of a big “record” trophy? No, the
horns were rather insignificant on this scale. Why then did I feel
deceived, why did I feel a sense of hurt and loss? It’s quite simple – because my personal mementos of an unforgettable chase
in wild lands, the tangible memories of a true hunt, had been
ruined beyond repair.
For me, the remembrance of a hunting experience through
the trophy carries the deeper meaning of collecting trophies. Yet
I appreciate that other people can have different motives – so let
us have a more detailed look at the controversial phenomenon
what is commonly called a hunting “trophy”
Linguistically, the term trophy originates from the Greek
“tropaion” – in its direct translation “a sign of victory”, which
originally was nothing but a signpost placed by the victorious
army at exactly the point, where the enemy was turned to flight –
hence was defeated. Since we as “fair chase” hunters do not
consider game our enemy, this interpretation from the ancient
Greeks leads us nowhere; it is, therefore, not applicable in a
hunting context.
Delving a bit deeper into the matter, we discover, however, a
second aspect, which is also somewhat connected with victory –
the celebration of a successful endeavor. “Trophy” in this context
describes the celebration of something memorable! The trophy
may thus be considered a sort of memorabilia to mark an experience crowned by success. As such the symbolic value of a
trophy is relatively easy to understand. When the hunter looks at
the trophies on the wall, she or he is engaging in one of human-
ity’s primary privileges: self-assertion and the experience of joy
and happiness.
To this we may add another human trait – striving to be
equal, or superior, to others. After all, it is “my trophy” I am looking at, hard-earned and well-deserved. The chicken in the hen
house have a pecking order; the wolf pack is lead by an Alpha
pair. But social hierarchy is by no means a privilege of the
chicken or the wolves. Simply said, we, as members of the human race, also live in our hen house and try to obtain and/or
maintain our adequate rank there. Let’s take a closer look at the
trophy in this context as well.
If we accept the term trophy as a symbol of success – then
we have nowadays far more trophies than our ancestors ever
dreamt of: there are trophies in all forms of competitive sports;
there are other trophies, some taking form of “proof of success”,
in most of our daily activities. Just look at school reports, university certificates, medals, and a wide array of titles of whatever
connotation. I am also certainly not far off the mark when I identify the social significance of certain status symbols such as
expensive automobiles, boats, private planes and even – my
lady readers hopefully condone what follows – second, third and
forth “trophy wives”, as originating in our ancestral hunting culture. The hunter who supplied sufficient food for the tribe was
duly recognized and honored with a “trophy” in terms of an elevated position in his society. Most of them – to some extent, at
least – are considered acceptable human behavioral traits.
But let’s look at one obviously negative aspect. I am talking
about exaggeration – the going beyond the bounds of reason or
as a matter of fact, beyond the bounds of good taste.
We encounter this when we enter the realm of the braggart,
the egotistic trophy-maniac. Bragging, obviously, is one distinctly
human attribute and by no means part of the trophy. Rather, the
braggart misuses the trophy for egotistical reasons. We all know
that any type of excess generates reactions. And excessive
trophy-centered behavior does just this – it provokes many of the
non-hunters in our society.
Of course, we also want to “record” the result of the sustainContinued on Page 2
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Continued from Page 1
Trophy Hunting: How I See It by Dieter Schramm
able hunting harvest – but the hunters need to redefine the innocent word “record trophy” since it is, unfortunately, perceived
now with a very negative image in non-hunting circles of society.
Abominable excesses, like the artificial manipulation of semi or
fully domesticated so-called game animals with homunculus
horns or antlers to be released on shooting-preserves for the
executioner’s rifle in Europe, New Zealand and North America,
or the soon to be abandoned practice of canned lion shooting in
South Africa, must be exposed as what they are. These activities
are neither wildlife management, nor hunting – and the horns
and antlers obtained there cannot be hunting trophies!
The reduction of the individual and very personal value of
hunting trophies to score sheets with numbers is deplorable. In
fact, trophy mania destroys our hunting culture and makes
mockery of our traditions. I state this as President of CIC, an
organization which gained acknowledgement over many decades through its formulas for trophy scoring. The CIC has never
shied from assuming responsibility; therefore we address the
issues connected with the misuse of scoring systems by some.
We consider the recording of trophies and the respective databases as conservation tool to show the value of sustainable and
regulated hunting. Within this trophy philosophy, we place emphasis on bio-indicators and good wildlife management practices; large antlers or horns of a mature trophy are the natural
result of a vibrant game population. Within this philosophy we
also need to publicly recognize that the often cited “representative” trophy and not the occasional “world’s record” or the few
exceptionally high-scoring ones are the normative of the mentioned indicators. The CIC has again taken an initiative by fostering a platform for dialogue during this year’s General Assembly
in Belgrade with the symposium “Trophy Hunting, Hunting Trophies and Trophy Recording: Facts, Risks and Opportunities”.
The rare super trophies are luxuries of nature. The hunter
who is lucky enough to kill a game animal with exceptional horns
or antlers under fair chase conditions has all the right to celebrate this accordingly. We also recognize that global recreational
hunting as one important tool in wildlife conservation would not
exist without trophy hunting. The traveling hunters, who spend
serious money to hunt in far-flung corners of the world, wish to
bring home tangible memories from an exciting country, remarkable people and an exhilarating outdoor experience. These tangible memories find expression in the hunting trophies. The excitement of fair chase, the experience of the land and its people,
and the harvesting a mature specimen which lived and died in its
natural habitat, finds a just expression in the preservation of its
trophy attributes. The tactful display of such a trophy immortalizes the animal and the experience.
Some might call this vanity, but I suggest that there is nothing wrong with such vanity. Indeed, let’s not be naive: vanity,
particularly recognizable in the species Homo venator, is a
common human behavioral pattern. And, without a doubt, it contributes to our highly personal and individualistic well being. In
this context vanity is very much acceptable. Let me repeat: it is
the exaggeration of glorifying the hunter, who most likely has
anyhow only been extremely lucky to be in the right place at the
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right time, which I deeply deplore.
In order to avoid any misunderstanding: I treasure my own
hunting trophies! I want to make it unmistakably clear that this
joy, this feeling of happiness and gratification, is an integral part
of hunting. However those, who claim that ultimate happiness as
a hunter lies in the scoring sheet and the ranking of a trophy,
that their trophy rankings determine their hunting prowess over
other hunters, are truly poor. They do not understand what hunting really means and they are certainly unable to convey the true
character and meaning of the hunt to non-hunters.
To summarize: I do consider the term “trophy” as a prototype
of the status symbol and as an expression of success in society.
Consequently, the hunter’s success manifested in the trophy of
game taken can be linked perfectly into the framework of cultural
validation. In our social consciousness of today, however, the
archaic hunting success has been superseded by economic
success and the achievement of ranking positions of the ladder
of social hierarchy. Yet, there are areas, where the economic
success is not automatically considered the highest social
achievement – the achievements of philosophers, painters, poets, composers, and so forth can never be fully measured in
economic terms.
Likewise, the utilitarian and cultural changes in hunting –
from subsistence to recreational hunting – have engendered
changes in its social relevance. The perception of hunting has
changed. Consequently, the hunter needs to adapt too, especially with regards to trophy hunting. Well regulated and ethically
conducted trophy hunting plays today an important role in nature
conservation. Let us not demean this importance. Let us rather
honor a hunting trophy for what it represents – the individual and
personal memory of an extraordinary experience, the recognition
of many unfathomable strokes of luck coming together and, most
of all the joy and pride in the results of sustainable wildlife management and a successful end to a fair chase.
African Indaba eNewsletter
Editor & Publisher: Gerhard R Damm
Postal Address: PO Box 411, Rivonia 2128, South Africa
Email: [email protected]
Phone +27-11-883-2299, Fax +27-11-784-2074
WEB: http://www.africanindaba.co.za/
Opinions expressed in African Indaba are not necessarily those of the
publisher and editor. Whilst every care is taken in the preparation of this
newsletter, we cannot accept any responsibility for errors. African Indaba
eNewsletter is published every two months as a free service to the sustainable use community. Please share it with others who may be interested in the topics covered by African Indaba.
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For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Big Game Trophies: The CIC
Evaluation System
By André-Jacques Hettier de Boislambert (France)
Translated from French by Fiona Capstick (South Africa)
Editor’s Note: André-Jacques Hettier de Boislambert, a member of the French CIC Delegation, entered the CIC in 1950. At
the same time he became part of the CIC Commission on Exhibitions and Trophies. In 1954, during the International Hunting
and Fishing Expo in Düsseldorf, Hettier de Boislambert, was a
prominent member of the trophy jury. He held the same position
at the international show in Nuremberg in 1986. After participating in numerous meetings, Hettier de Boislambert was responsible for the editing of « Les trophées de chasse du monde: Formules Internationales pour la Mensuration et le Classement des
Trophées” – the French version of the CIC Standard for trophy
scoring “The Game-Trophies of the World: International Formula
for the Measurement and Evaluation of Trophies”.
In France, Hettier de Boislambert founded and chaired a specialized trophy committee in 1971, which became a National Commission in 1981. In 2006 he was again instrumental in the formation of the “Association Français de Mensuration des Trophées
AFMT” - an organization of more than 200 experts.
André-Jacques Hettier de Boislambert is the Honorary President
of the French “Association Nationale des Chasseur de Grand
Gibier” and an honorary member of the Conseil International de
la Chasse et de la Conservation du Gibier, known in English as
the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation
Brief Background
Since its establishment in 1930, CIC has worked on the
standardization and completion of the several formulas for assessing and scoring big game trophies which had been tried
during international hunting exhibitions in Vienna in 1910, followed by Leipzig in 1931.
In Warsaw in 1934, and in Prague in 1937, specialists in
European big game agreed on a measuring system that was
eventually put into practice at the big international exposition in
Berlin in 1937.
After the 2nd World War, work was resumed, resulting in the
so-called “Madrid 1952” formula. Following several reappraisals
and expansions, the complete CIC system formed the basis for
the publication in 1978 of a volume in three languages titled
“Hunting Trophies of the World”. This has been the reference
work since for the assessment of all trophies, mainly of European big game.
Other Systems
There are other trophy scoring systems in the world, the
best-known being:
• The Rowland Ward system, developed from
1892 onwards by the British naturalist after
whom it is named. This method covers all huntable species but it is hardly used any longer except for African game.
• The Boone and Crocket Club system, developed
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from 1949 onwards, covers exclusively big game
from North America.
• The Safari Club International system, created in
the United States of America, covers all large
huntable species of the world and is very dynamic.
The CIC System Features
All the systems in use in the world are based on linear
measurements, taken at certain points of the trophies and involving only length, circumference and spread. The CIC system
distinguishes itself from all the others by taking two special factors into consideration:
¾ awarding so-called points “for beauty”, and, subtracting penalties for so-called “imperfections”;
¾ introduction of the factor of “weight” into the formulas for the three European cervidae, the roe
deer, the red deer and the fallow deer.
These special factors, that distinguish the CIC system, give it a
negative reputation because, on one hand, they have no technical basis and, on the other hand, they allow subjectivity to creep
into a measuring process that should be strictly objective.
Criticism of the System
a) Points for so-called “Beauty”
¾ The color of a trophy is independent of age, bulk
and the animal’s state of health. It is darker or
lighter depending to the time of the year when
the animal is taken and the nature of the biotope, open plains or forest, the trees and other
plants. Color is in no way indicative of the quality
of an animal. In addition, it can be “improved” artificially.
¾ This holds true for the other factors that fall under
the heading “beauty”, them being totally subjective.
¾ Beauty points, especially concerning the roe deer
species, favor the possibility of a mediocre trophy being placed into an award-winning category. The nineteen points overall, which are envisaged in the CIC formula, can see a buck trophy of 86 points attaining the homologable level
of 105 points. This is an aberration.
b) Span or Spread
In what way would a trophy that is wider than another be superior? It is a “virtual” measurement that in no way indicates the
value or mass of the trophy or allows for a comparison other
than one that is purely aesthetic.
c) Antler weight for the three European cervidae
This measurement does not convey the actual quality of a
trophy because it is independent of volume, the only meaningful
feature of what cervidae carry on the head. Weight is subject to
considerable variations depending to area, density not indicating
quality. A buck of 260 cm3 weighs 545 grams here and 600
grams in an area 300 kilometers away.
Measurement of weight, furthermore, is open to many mistakes because of the various skull cuts. Here the CIC formula is
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
Continued on Page 4
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Continued from Page 3
Big Game Trophies: The CIC Evaluation System by André-Jacques Hettier
de Boislambert
inaccurate. Weight is also of little consequence concerning biology and it is leading to arguments and possibly falsification,
because it is easy to alter weight by humidifying the trophy again
shortly before it is assessed.
Discussion
In the past, the CIC system offered the advantage of allowing assessed comparisons among trophies at international, national or regional level. Hundreds of thousands of trophies have
been measured according to the CIC scoring directives and it
served as a reference for European species.
This system, however, was devised for another age when
hunting was not what it has become. The hunting landscape has
changed profoundly because of the development of big game in
all countries, access to hunting by all social levels and the emergence of anti-hunting stances.
Nowadays, a section of public opinion calls hunting into
question. In order to justify hunting, the main and best argument
lie in proving its capacity to manage renewable natural resources in a sustainable fashion on behalf of the community.
In this context, the pursuit for certificates and medals appears obsolete and is negatively viewed. It must be pointed out
that official scientific or technical entities responsible for the
management and study of wildlife do not take this aspect into
account at all, especially because the CIC system embodies
subjective factors.
Consequently, it is the concept of the trophy that must
evolve in order to adapt itself to the conditions of modern, rational, responsible and managed hunting.
Conclusion
A trophy will always retain its value as the hunter’s personal
remembrance. This does not depend inevitably on its quality but
also on the environment and the circumstances of the harvesting. It is the immaterial aspect in space and time of the concept
of the trophy.
In wildlife management, assessment of a trophy assumes
significant interest when it occurs at population levels. Control of
the quality of an animal population over the years enables managers to ascertain the adaptation of wildlife and of its biotope.
In this sense and in order to find an indisputable place for
hunting in the 21st century, a measuring system, of necessity,
must be straightforward to implement, exact in its directives and
devoid of any subjective elements.
It is in this way and in this way alone, that this system can be
useful as a means for sustainable management. The focus must
not fall on exceptional specimens that serve only to pander to
vanity, provoking an escalation in hunting costs and bestowing
on it a deplorable elitist image in the eyes of the public.
A proposal is being made to CIC, consequently, that its system be overhauled by discarding subjective or unimportant factors such as points for beauty, penalties, span/spread and
weight.
At the same time, CIC would be well advised to discard the
formulas for carnivore skins, as it is known that their dimensions
are too easily adjustable.
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Contents African Indaba Vol 5/3
Page
Trophy Hunting: How I see it!
Dieter Schramm, President CIC
1
Big Game Trophies: The CIC Scoring System
André-Jacques Hettier de Boislambert
3
Trophy Hunting, Hunting Trophies and Trophy
Recording: Facts, Risks and Opportunities –
the CIC Workshop in Belgrade
Gerhard Damm
5
Restoring Kenya’s Squandered Heritage
Dr. Laurence Frank
6
The Influence of Trophy Measurements in
Cape Buffalo
Dr Winston Taylor
7
Scoring of Trophies
Dr A B Bubenik
10
Cape Buffalo: Is the SCI Trophy Scoring
System Wrong?
Dr Kevin Robertson
10
Red Deer Stag Classification in Europe
Professor Dr Klaus Hackländer
14
Sacrificial Ram
Daniel Duane
15
Hunters Shoot Themselves in the Foot
Ian Parker
19
Trophy Hunting: The Professional Hunter’s Dilemma
Stewart Dorrington & Peter Butland (PHASA)
20
Predator Conservation and Hunting in Kenya
Dr Stephanie Romañach
22
The Rowland Ward Guild of Field Sportsmen
Peter Flack (Rowland Ward)
23
Hunting for Trophies
Raymond Lee (FNAWS & ISHA)
26
SCI Record Book of Trophy Animals:
Documenting the Hunting Heritage
Dr Douglas Yajko (SCI)
28
Boone & Crockett Club: Fair Chase and
Conservation since 1887
Jack Reneau (B&C)
28
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Trophy Hunting, Hunting Trophies and Trophy Recording:
Evaluating Facts, Risks and
Opportunities
CIC Workshop 3rd and 4th May in Belgrade/Serbia
By Gerhard R Damm
On May 3rd and 4th (for the meeting schedule consult the
CIC program) the CIC members and international guests will
meet during the 54th General Assembly of the CIC in Belgrade/Serbia to discuss the facts, risks and opportunities
which are connected with trophy hunting, hunting trophies
and trophy recording. Dr. Francois Schwarzenbach and John J
Jackson III will co-chair the workshop. This session of the CIC
General Assembly will lay the groundwork towards the formulation of a CIC statement on Hunting Trophies and Trophy Hunting
as irreducible elements of hunting in the 21st century, as key
components of global sustainable hunting tourism and resident
recreational hunting.
The two-day meeting will review the history of and consider
developments in trophy hunting, compare the major European,
African and American measuring and awards systems for hunting trophies and analyze differences and similarities in the past,
and present as well as future trends of trophy hunting cultures of
Europe and North America. Ad hoc working groups will discuss
specific issues and formulate positions, which the editing team
will integrate into a final presentation to the General Assembly.
The CIC Executive Committee, in cooperation with the
presidents of the CIC commissions on Tropical Game, Sustainable Use, Holarctic Game and Exhibitions & Trophies will subsequently establish a joint task force to build on the results of the
meeting. This task force will elaborate a comprehensive position
paper, which will consider a hopefully continuous feedback from
members, experts and scientists. The task force will also encourage and expand a cooperative dialogue with other regional
and global hunting organizations, especially those who were
represented at the meeting. The final position paper will be presented to the CIC Executive Committee and the CIC Council by
November 2007.
Gerhard Damm, CIC South Africa Delegation and publisher
of African Indaba, will give the key note presentation, followed by
presentations of three prominent trophy scoring systems. These
reviews will be offered by Dr. Francois Schwarzenbach, president of the CIC Commission of Exhibitions & Trophies, for the
CIC, Gray Thornton as representative of the Boone & Crockett
Club for this eminent American trophy scoring system and Peter
Flack, Chairman of Rowland Ward’s for Rowland Ward’s Book of
Trophy Records. The forth slot was reserved for the Safari Club
International Trophy Records Committee, but unfortunately SCI
informed the organizers just before the meeting that their participation had to be cancelled for internal reasons.
Finally, Gray Thornton, Executive Director of Dallas Safari
Club will talk about the “The Essence of Hunting” and bring the
presentation part of the meeting to a close.
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The delegates will dedicate the next hours to discussing and
workshopping a number of issues like
o Trophy Hunting as indispensable component of sustainable hunting tourism and local recreational hunting
o Review of aspects of socio-biological and morphometrical standards in present measuring systems.
o How to include more scientifically and conservation
relevant data in trophy recording
o Positive PR and media campaigns inside and outside
hunting circles to explain the raison d’etre for measuring and recording systems
o International cooperation in scoring systems
During the second day’s session the delegates will again
meet in working groups to discuss issues and formulate common
objectives in fields like:
¾ Trophy hunting and the CIC Sustainable Hunting Tourism Program
¾ The economic and conservation significance of trophy
hunting
¾ Species-specific socio-biological and morphometrical
trophy features or subjective anthropomorphistic “ideals” in trophy measuring systems
¾ The “Competition” factor
¾ Trophies from escape proof enclosures
¾ Problems of Trophy Hunting: Public perception, trophy
cult, etc
¾ Risks of Trophy Hunting: Domestication of formerly
wild animals to “produce trophies”, etc
¾ Opportunities for Trophy Hunting: Conservation hunting and Incentive-Driven-Conservation
International guests form the associations already mentioned
earlier in this article will be joined by others like Raymond Lee,
President of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep and
of the International Sheep Hunters’ Association, Don Causey,
publisher of “The Hunting Report”, Dr. Karlheinz Betz Editor-inChief of Wild & Hund, Shane Mahoney, CIC Expert and member
of the Board of Conservation Force, Stewart Dorrington, President of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa,
Gary van den Berg and Borrie Erasmus of Wildlife Ranching
South Africa, Chris Weaver of WWF-LIFE, Namibia, and many
others,
This issue of African Indaba is dedicated entirely towards the
preparation of this meeting, providing background information for
the participants, but also informing a wide audience of international hunters about the issues and potential solutions. Without
the support of the CIC staff in Budapest and the backing of the
project by the CIC Executive Committee, this effort would not
have materialized. Therefore it is appropriate to express thanks
and appreciation towards the CIC International Council for Game
and Wildlife Conservation for providing not only a platform to
discuss these important issues, but also the logistical backup to
have hundreds of copies of this special issue of African Indaba
printed and distributed.
In the next issues of African Indaba we will report about the
results of this Belgrade meeting and continue to explore the
complex topic with the assistance of international opinion leaders, hunters and scientists. We would also welcome feedback
from the readers of African Indaba – make your opinion count!
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Restoring Kenya’s
dered Heritage
Squan-
By Dr Laurence Frank, Laikipia Predator Project, Kenya
Editor’s Note: Dr. Laurence Frank, from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of California, Berkeley,
has studied predators in Kenya for 37 years. He runs the
Living With Lions project, working on lion conservation in
Laikipia and Loitokitok Districts. He is not a big game
hunter.
An edited version of this article was published in March by
The Daily Nation, Nairobi – Here is Dr Frank’s original text:
Kenya has squandered its most important resource: seventy
percent of our wildlife has disappeared in the last thirty years.
They have been strangled in snares by the millions, to be sold
as ‘nyama’ in rural and urban butcheries. Even in our national
parks, many species are in serious decline due to poaching and
habitat destruction on their boundaries; even the lions and other
large predators which attract tourists to our parks are being
speared and poisoned into extinction.
In that same thirty years, South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe have seen an immense increase in wildlife numbers, as
thousands of cattle ranches have been turned back to wildlife
production (sadly, much of Zimbabwe’s regained wildlife was
snared after ‘land reform’). Wildlife continues to do very well in
Tanzania and Botswana. What accounts for the collapse of
wildlife in of Kenya while it has increased enormously in the
southern countries? Human populations have grown in most
countries, so that does not explain the difference.
One difference is that in those countries wildlife outside of
parks has great value for sport hunting, whereas in Kenya wild
animals are just a costly and expensive nuisance to the rural
people who share the land with them. Kenya shut down trophy
hunting in 1977, just as landowners and communities in southern Africa found that their land was worth far more when producing wildlife for high paying foreign hunters than it was for cattle.
Landowners carefully manage their land to produce wild game,
and carefully regulate hunting to ensure a lasting crop of trophy
animals. With 250,000 square kilometers outside of parks maintained for hunting, Tanzania has more wildlife than any country
in Africa and income from trophy hunting is a mainstay of the
national economy. Kenya’s policy, which denies rural people
any benefit from wildlife, ensures that people resent animals for
destroying their crops, eating their livestock, and occasionally
killing people. To a rural Kenyan, it makes absolute sense to eat
the game and kill the predators, because they gain nothing from,
and lose a lot to wild animals. In other countries, well managed
hunting brings money and development to rural areas.
How can a country without legal hunting see its wildlife spiral
into extinction? The answer is bad policy – our policy ensures
that rural people resent wildlife, instead of profiting from it. This
tragic state of affairs has been maintained by foreign animal
rights groups which spend millions of pounds and dollars annually influencing Kenyan policy makers and the media to ensure
that their destructive policies are maintained. These overseas
Page 6
groups apparently do not seem to care that millions of our animals strangle miserably in snares, so long as none are shot for
profit. They boast to their American and British supporters that
there is no hunting in Kenya, not admitting that as a result there
is little wildlife left in Kenya, either. They rent mobs to demonstrate against any improvement in policy, and fill the Kenyan
press with nonsensical claims that hunters want to indiscriminately slaughter game, even in national parks, and stir racial
strife by claiming that hunting would benefit only “rich wazungu”
rather than impoverished pastoralist communities.
In North America, Europe, and southern Africa, properly
managed hunting has greatly increased wildlife populations,
because people value it – no species has ever gone extinct due
to sport hunting, because it is in the hunters’ interest to ensure
large populations. In fact, trophy hunters want only large old
males, with impressive horns, tusks or manes, animals that are
no longer needed to produce offspring. Unlike bushmeat
poachers, they do not take females and young, ensuring an
abundance of wildlife.
In Botswana today, a very few male lions are shot every
year, at a price of nearly ten million Kenya shillings each. Fully
half of that fee goes to the rural community in which the lion was
taken, and another quarter goes to the Wildlife Department for
conservation. Five million shillings would repay a community for
400 cattle taken by lions. Or support dozens of teachers or
trained nurses. In Botswana, that lion, and all the associated
wildlife, are a source of immense income, to be valued and encouraged. In Kenya, that lion is only an expensive, cattle-killing
nuisance, to be poisoned or speared and left to rot in the sun.
Of course, many people object that serious money brings serious corruption, and claim that Kenya could not possibly regulate hunting properly. However, the old East African Professional
Hunters Association took great pride in the ethical behavior of its
members, and policed itself far more rigorously than the Game
Department ever could. I believe that professional ethic is still
strong in Kenya, and that properly managed hunting would
benefit rural communities and landowners while increasing wildlife populations. If the rest of the world can manage wildlife for
conservation and rural peoples’ well-being, so can Kenya.
What we do know is that the old policy, bought by foreign pressure groups, has been a disaster for our wildlife heritage.
… to measure and retain the rich biodiversity of Africa … we need to break
with traditional thinking to catalyze a
new vision and join hands in new partnerships
Nelson Mandela
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
The Influence of Trophy
Measurement in Cape Buffalo
By Winston Taylor, Environmental Biology, Oxford Brookes
University
Editor’s Note: Winston Taylor’s scientific paper (Full Title: The
Influence of Trophy Measurement on the Age of Sport Hunted
Buffalo, Syncerus Caffer (Sparrman), in the Zambezi Valley,
Zimbabwe, and its Implications for Sustainable Trophy Hunting,
2005) has been adapted to the format of African Indaba. Due to
time constraints the author could not be consulted prior to publication, hence errors and omissions are the editor’s fault. You
can download the original paper from www.africanindaba.co.za
Conserving wildlife in Africa is often difficult as it conflicts
with humans and their activities. “One way to make conservation
gains”, particularly in the African context, “is to capitalize on the
importance of wild species in human livelihoods”. The “sustainable harvesting of plants and hunting of animals has often turned
out to be a highly effective conservation measure” (Hutton,
2004). Sport hunting has a long and involved history in Africa.
The appeal of the classic “African Safari” was stimulated by the
likes of Ruark and Hemingway in their numerous tales of hunting
and adventure in the wilds of Africa.
Hunting is an important tool in conservation although it must
not be seen as conservation in itself. Commercial hunting is of
great value in both the economic and ecological sense. Low offtakes of trophy animals provide good financial returns with minimal investment. Sport hunting is also a major force behind the
preservation of wildlife and wild places.
The growing fragmentation of species’ habitats over the last
century has led to the emergence of community based conservation whereby local communities are encouraged to value wildlife through both non-consumptive and consumptive activities
(e.g. hunting) from which they receive multiple benefits. Prior to
these new “radical” ways of tackling conservation, much of colonial Africa was subject to state-centric “fortress conservation”, in
which rural Africans were seen as the enemy of conservation
and degraders of the environment. Community conservation on
the other hand encourages, through the concept of “sustainable
development”, that species, habitats and biodiversity, should be
seen as exploitable and managed through conservation and
developmental goals.
Villagers are given a share in license fees paid by wealthy
clients and suddenly see a species, such as buffalo or elephant,
not as a menacing crop raider but as a highly valuable asset
which should be protected. Clients will also be charged a range
of fees by the government, collected either directly or on the
government’s behalf by the safari operator. Such fees are likely
to include a conservation fee, firearms and ammunition permit
fees, trophy export fees, airport fees etc. It is through such systems that hunting can be used as a tool in conservation. However, if hunting is to be pursued in areas where wildlife resources are finite, a tight management regime has to be employed in order to ensure its sustainability. Incorrect management of the hunted wildlife would result in unstable population
Page 7
dynamics, diminished gene pools and ultimately loss of species
from an area.
The African Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, is one of the
classic African trophies, and consequently a key species in safari hunting. In Zimbabwe (total hunting earnings 1998: US$23
million) it is the second most important species, in monetary
terms. Sport hunting is where the future of the Cape buffalo lies
especially outside of formally protected areas.
Buffalo are classed as one of the “Big 5”. The very nature of
buffalo make them a desirable trophy, if not the ultimate big
game trophy for the hunting sportsperson. They are unpredictable and thus difficult and dangerous to get close to, hence the
hunters’ skills are tested to the full and the true characteristics of
a hunt – fear, fascination and adrenaline - are evoked.
Maintaining a high market value for buffalo hunting relies
upon the provision of quality trophies, achieved through the implementation of trophy quota systems. Offtakes need to be carefully regulated and within biological limits. Buffalo populations
typically grow at about 7% p a; however, in order to ensure quality trophies offtakes should be limited to 2% p a.
It is of concern that immature buffalo are being over hunted
because of the combined effect of high off-take quotas, and the
possible influence of inappropriate measurement systems. There
are currently two systems of trophy measurement: the SCI
method established in 1978 and the Rowland Ward method from
1892. The latter is the system of trophy measurement most traditionally used by hunters worldwide. When scoring buffalo, RW
takes only the spread of the horns into account, such that older
animals may score equally as well as younger animals. SCI
however, in an effort to produce a more all round score, includes
the depth of the curl and the width of the bosses. The use of the
SCI system, with which the majority of North American clients,
who form 60% of visiting clients, are familiar, is believed to be
contributing to younger individuals being shot whereas the use
of the RW method is believed to be supportive of more sustainable off-takes in the long term.
In safari hunting adult buffalo bulls are selected for their trophy value. Sexual maturity is reached at 4-5 years; however, in
most cases the trophy is still considered undesirable at this
stage. A quality trophy is most likely a buffalo bull aged between
7 and 12 years. Professional hunters have to rely principally on
the characteristics of the bull’s horns in order to determine its
potential trophy quality and a possible age for the animal.
As a trophy reaches its full potential (its prime) the boss
hardens forming ridges and the fully grown horns are curved in a
hook shape. The tips of the horns are still sharp at this stage, but
as the animals age the horn tips are worn down and the bosses
become progressively smoother. Such individuals are often
found in “bachelor” groups away from breeding herds; the hunting of such groups of individuals is less likely to result in the
offtake of immature individuals.
However, since these groups will join the herds for breeding
purposes, being able to judge the relationship between age and
trophy size on a more rigorous basis would allow hunters to
make better informed decisions. In doing so, the offtake of immature bulls can be prevented, which in turn would be beneficial
Continued on Page 8
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Continued from Page 7
The Influence of Trophy Measurement in Cape Buffalo by Winston Taylor
for the sustainability of quality trophy offtake.
The SCI measurement system is thought to favor younger
“soft-bossed” bulls whose horns are still yet to lose their sharp
tips. It is such animals that tend to make the record books but
only because the measuring system favors animals with such
attributes. Of the top three scoring buffalo bulls in the SCI record
books, only one is “hard-bossed”, the other two are still “soft”
(i.e. still young). Hunting buffalo at this age is likely to cut short
their genetic contribution within the population.
Establishing a relationship between age and trophy size using each respective scoring system would hopefully allow for
better selection on an age basis and hence would contribute to
the sustainable hunting of high quality trophies. It would also
shed light on the importance of scoring system use and the possible need for adjustments. This study looks specifically at the
relationship between the age of hunted bulls and their respective
trophy sizes using, RW and SCI scoring methods. Furthermore,
the age of each hunted buffalo was determined to within one
year using Taylor’s age determination methods.
The study area was the Middle Zambezi Valley with hunting
concessions managed by Parks & Wildlife Authority and settled
Communal Land where CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources) is operational.
Dande South and Dande Communal Land are operated by
Ingwe Safaris with about 45 buffalo bulls on quota out of an estimated population of 1,053 (representative of approximately ½
to ¾ of the buffalo population as aerial census results for the
area were inconclusive). Dande North (CAMPFIRE) and Dande
Safari Area (Parks and Wildlife) are operated by Swainson’s
Safaris. Between the two areas there are about 100 buffalo bulls
currently on quota out of an estimated population of 4,037 buffalo. Buffalo populations are moving freely between the two safari areas. Chewore North (Parks and Wildlife) is operated by Big
Five Safaris with 55 buffalo bulls on quota from an estimated
buffalo population of 1,964.
Th safari areas collectively hold significant numbers of large
game, ranging from elephants, hippo, buffalo, and big cats (lion,
leopard) to large and small antelope. The safari operators involved are highly reputable and constitute some of the biggest
names in safari hunting in southern Africa.
At the start of the hunting season, I requested the operators
to retain and tag the lower jaws of each shot buffalo. Both RW
and SCI scores were measured and recorded for each trophy.
The mandibular molars were extracted from the lower jaws and
the age of each shot buffalo determined. I also had the opportunity to discuss views with both clients and professional hunters.
The data set obtained represents approximately two thirds of the
male buffalo on quota in the concession areas for the year 2004.
A total of 91 samples were collected; 29 from Dande South,
30 from Chewore North and 32 from Dande North. The data sets
from Chewore North and Dande South are probably representative of the trophy buffalo populations within those areas; the data
set from Dande North represents just under half of the quota for
the area.
The average age of the sampled buffalo was 8.01 years. The
Page 8
majority of the buffalo shot (76%) were between 6 and 8 years
old; the remaining 24% comprised mostly of 9 and 10 year-olds,
with less than 6% of the hunted population being 11 years or
older. 3% of the buffalo were considered to be truly immature (5
years in age).
Dande South exhibited the largest proportion of “young” trophies, with 52% of the sampled quota being 7 years or younger
in age (25% are 6 years old). The oldest trophy is only 10 years
old. Dande North exemplified a greater proportion of older trophy
animals, and contains the highest percentage (40%) of 7 - 8
year-old trophies (animals in their prime). Yet there is still a relatively large percentage (25%) of young individuals (6 year olds)
being shot. 16% were 10 years old and 6% reached 12 years.
Chewore North has a relatively normal age structure within its
hunted sample of trophy bulls, with the greatest number of bulls
(35%) being shot at the prime age of 8 years. 16% of the trophies are 6 years old. There is however a sharp decline in trophies of 9 years or older and a “tail” of older animals.
Given the results of earlier studies, a more plausible explanation is that few 9, 10, 11, and 12 year-olds are being shot
because bulls are being taken before they reach that age. The
sustainability of trophy hunting is brought therefore into question.
Data on trophy ages obtained from Big Five Safaris indicate that
trophy age has been relatively stable over the previous 4 years;
average ages ranging from 8.7 to 9.9. Ageing of buffalo bulls has
also been taking place in Dande North, with the average age
ranging from 8 in 2001 to 10 in 2002 and back to 9 in 2003.
However, it has since been established that teeth had not been
extracted resulting in overestimation of the actual ages. This
said the data is still relevant since it provides evidence of relative
stability in trophy age in Chewore North and Dande North
According to estimated population figures from an aerial
census in 2001, the offtake in all three areas exceeds the recommended 2% pa. The estimated buffalo population of Dande
North in 2001 was 4037; more recently the same population,
from visual estimates on the ground, is judged to be about 5500
animals. If this is the case then the set quota for 2004 is just
under the recommended 2%. Although Chewore North and
Dande South both have large buffalo populations, the evidence
suggests that the recommended offtake of 2% pa has been exceeded. It is also likely that that quota setting is affected by the
different management systems employed between Chewore
North and Dande North and South.
It would appear that the average trophy scores (from Chewore North, Dande North and Dande South) are satisfactory for
the majority of clients. Whether this is really the case or not is an
interesting question. The nature of the desired trophy changes
somewhat depending on the client nationality; European clients,
especially German and Austrian, tend to prefer “character” trophies, which are usually older animals, the emphasis being on
trophy individuality and not size or score. American clients, (60%
of the safari client) are inclined towards hunting individuals for
their trophy size.
But hunting and trophy selection is not an exact science. Ultimately a client will shoot the trophy which, in his mind, is best,
and has the backing opinion of the professional hunter, who after
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
Continued on Page 9
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Continued from Page 8
The Influence of Trophy Measurement in Cape Buffalo by Winston Taylor
all is the client’s “visual measurement method.
Hunting buffalo is no easy task, and the absence of any truly
mature animals could be attributed to the “pressures” of hunting
and ultimately, chance. The “pressures” of hunting involve limited time frames, fussy clients, “co-operative” buffalo and of
course an element of luck. Whilst these previous two scenarios
are possible, the most obvious factor explaining the lack of old
trophy buffalo is simply that there are very few old buffalo within
the population. Death by natural means is more likely to occur as
buffalo age, and is usually around 14 years or older amongst
unexploited (protected) wild buffalo populations.
The average Rowland Ward (RW) score was 36.98 inches
with “40 inch” buffalo considered the bench mark for a good
quality trophy. The average SCI score was 96.26 inches, just
short of the bench mark SCI trophy score of 100 inches.
Correlation between trophy size and animal age using the
RW method indicate that scores decrease minimally with age.
The SCI scoring method indicates in contrast the possibility of a
strong relationship between trophy size and animal age and
scores decrease markedly with age. The difference becomes
apparent in the different classification of a “record trophy”.
The minimum score for the SCI record book is 100 inches.
The minimum score for RW is 42 inches. Of the 91 samples
taken over the duration of this study, only 4 were eligible for
entry into the RW record book, whilst an astounding 34 were
eligible for entry into the SCI record book. In terms of RW, only
20 of the buffalo had a trophy score equaling or exceeding the
bench mark of 40 inches. The implications of this are that clients
are more likely to aim for trophies with an SCI score of 100; not
only have they succeeded in achieving the “100 inch” bench
mark, but they also have the opportunity to have their names
written down in the annals.
We conclude that there is a significant difference between
the RW and SCI scoring systems relative to animal age and
younger animals’ trophy attributes are biased by the SCI scoring
system in relation to older trophy animals. Trophy bulls are most
likely to be shot in their prime when all attributes of the animals
horns are considered to be most appealing to the hunter. This is
reflected in the average trophy age of 8 years. The average age
for the three sample areas in this study is “pulled up” by the
presence of a “long tail” of older individuals. The current high
offtake of 6-8 year-olds in this study is possibly a sign of a
downward trend in relation to buffalo offtake age, and if so, the
notion of sustainable trophy hunting is at risk.
Statistical analysis shows that there is a significant relationship between trophy size and age when using the SCI measurement system and not the RW system. Furthermore, the SCI
system is shown to favor younger animals more than previously
thought. RW trophy scores on the other hand, decline only
minimally with age. The point is that a buffalo bull that scores
well on the SCI scale is likely to be a young, if not immature
individual. If trophy buffalo are being and continue to be shot at
ages, which on average are progressively younger, the sustainable hunting of quality trophy buffalo in the Middle Zambezi Valley is doubtful over the long term.
Page 9
Possible reasons for this are 2-fold. The quotas set by local
councils, whilst allowing sustainable offtake, are too high for
sustained trophy quality. Secondly, professional hunters and
their clients are ultimately responsible for trophy selection; their
attitudes towards selection are important. Adopting the “if I don’t
take it now, the next hunter will” attitude is an unfortunate reality,
particularly in relation to young animals that already possess all
the attributes of a good trophy. The manner and method of hunting is also important; hunting individuals out of herds, will most
often result in the offtake of younger bulls, whilst the hunting of
“bachelor” groups is more likely to result in the offtake of an individual in or beyond its prime
The SCI scoring method uses attributes of the buffalo’s
horns which are best developed in young animals, and whilst
this is the case, young animals will continue to be shot. At the
same time, RW scoring methods are also inadequate since different buffalo populations have different genetic tendencies for
larger or smaller outside spreads. As a result alternative scoring
methods have been proposed by Gandy and Reilly (2004). It is
based upon a “multiplication factor that is created by dividing the
horn tip space measurements, the mean of the two individual
horn lengths and then squaring the result”. Thus a good trophy
will exhibit typical attributes of an old animal:
• a wide tip space in relation to individual horn lengths
• a wide outside spread
• large boss widths
• small boss space (distance between inner edges).
However this last factor, as acknowledged by the authors,
and observed during the data collection in this study, is subject
to increase in older animals (12+ years of age). It has also been
suggested that the current SCI system be adjusted by weighting
the boss scores by doubling them, thereby encouraging hunters
to take older animals with better developed bosses.
The sustainable hunting of trophy quality buffalo relies upon
setting realistic quotas, which in the cases of Chewore North,
Dande North and Dande South, would result in a cutting back of
the present quotas. Not only is a sustainable quota important,
but so too is the trophy selection by professional hunters and
their clients; sustainable hunting necessitates that offtake does
not include young animals.
The adaptation of current scoring systems to favor older
animals would be an important step in allowing the establishment of an older “trophy” population.
The hunting industry is important not only to the economy of
Zimbabwe, but also to the many people whose livelihoods are
reliant upon it. Zimbabwe has long been regarded as a premier
safari destination; the high standards of professionalism within
the safari industry and the high quality hunting offered, have
together created this reputation.
Maintaining the quality of hunting also involves maintaining
and ensuring trophy quality, for all species alike, such that the
country and future generations will still be able to benefit from
the industry, as they do today.
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Scoring of Trophies
By A B Bubenik
Editor’s Note: The following lines are an extract from
“Socio-Biological Versus Hunter’s Viewpoints on Antlers
and Horns”; published as supplement to The Big Game of
the World, Werner Trense 1989, Paul Parey Hamburg, Page
378
In dealing with [the assessment of trophies] I have to question the legitimacy of the present assessment formulas. … Unfortunately, the designers of all these formulas were more experienced as hunters, rather than as biologically minded sportsmen or naturalists.
From a historical point of view, most of the inadequacies of
the formulas are understandable. [Nothing] was known about the
sociobiological significance of antlers and horns. [] When scoring
formulas were developed the morphometry of organs was only in
the beginnings. Therefore, it is no wonder that the basics of trophy evaluation were disregarded. However, it is difficult to understand why the authors of these formulas neglected all the
principles of geometry and statistics. Due to this negligence, the
differences between trophy scores represent neither the actual
difference in the dimensions of the trophy, nor the actual sociobiological value and metabolic achievement. Only for those reasons is it possible that trophies – not falling within the sociobiological range – are sometimes scored amongst the best and
some socio-biologically correct trophies are put into the category
“non-typical”.
The lack of interest in sociobiological formulas is hard to
understand, considering the fact that the first studies done on
this subject proved the validity of the concept.
[The guidelines for scoring] disregard the morphometrical
background and have the subjective anthropomorphistic aftertaste of the “ideal” appealing to the human eye. That is why it is
possible that the “aesthetics” points play such an important role
in [CIC] scoring and are often the reason for unpleasant controversies.
Hunters, who are concerned with the fate of the eupecoran
on the one hand, and the fate of hunting on the other, should
also give thought to the scoring formulas. Hunters cannot compete in harvesting world record trophies for the improvement of
personal status without losing face before the public. Sociobiological formulas are designed to undercut such efforts. The
trophy should be once more regarded as a status symbol of the
game itself (and not that of the hunter) as a species-specific
feature. Under such conditions, trophy-shows [and record books,
Ed] will be unique educational aids, presenting evidence as to
how hunters can improve the welfare of the game.
The largest antlers and horns are carried at the transitional
age between the prime and the post-prime stages. Males of that
age can be harvested as the best trophy bearers, and as a reward for the conservation of the primes.
Addendum: Bubenik also deals with the optimum infrastructure of deer populations in this article. See also Professor Klaus
Hackländer’s article about red deer management in Europe on
page 14
Page 10
Cape Buffalo: Is the SCI Trophy Scoring System Wrong?
By Dr. Kevin Robertson, South Africa
(Please send comments to [email protected])
There can be no doubt. Syncerus caffer caffer, the Southern
buffalo is by far Africa’s most popular dangerous trophy game
species. In fact, the demand for sport-hunting these formidable
black bovines seems almost insatiable. So much so that most
reputable safari operators offering buffalo are sold out years in
advance. Buffalo hunting is not cheap. Even for a two on one
hunt (this is two hunters with one PH), a hunter can expect to
pay at least $10,000 for the experience of securing a representative trophy. When spending this amount of money, it is perfectly
understandable that hunters ‘want a good one’, that will ‘make it
into the record book’.
Two well-known trophy recording systems exist. These are
SCI Record of Trophy Animals, and the British originated system
of Rowland Ward and their Records of Big Game. But with
Americans representing approximately 80 % of the sport-hunters
who visit Africa, the SCI system is by far the most popular. In
fact it is these sportsmen who practically drive the whole African
safari industry and one has only to visit Reno, for SCI’s annual
convention to realize just how vast this aspect really is.
SCI is a huge, well-run organization and most Americans
who desire to hunt in Africa are members. SCI has its own
unique scoring system and with regards to Syncerus caffer caffer, the current SCI scoring method follows the white line depicted in the photo below.
Photo 1: SCI Scoring System Measurements (white lines)
The length along the outside of the horn curl, from tip to tip,
plus the straight-line width measurement of both bosses for a
combined total score in inches. 100 inches is needed to qualify
for record book entry.
The Rowland Ward system is different in that it measures
the greatest outside spread only, and 42 inches in the current
requirement for record book entry.
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
Continued on Page 11
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Continued from Page 10
Cape Buffalo: Is the SCI Scoring System Wrong? By Kevin Robertson
Page 11
is physically the stronger. Bulls do not try to kill each other on
such occasions simply because mature buffalo bulls play a very
necessary roll in the defense of the herd from lions.
Because such fights involve head clashing, a bull buffalo
needs a hard or almost completely solid boss to enable it to
compete effectively. The horn tips on such occasions are not
used, and those which stick up above boss level are actually a
disadvantage.
Photo 2: Rowland Ward Scoring System – Approx. 8 Yrs old
bull. The boss is just about solid, and horn tips have
dropped to boss level
The current SCI scoring system exerts a tremendous influence on the type and consequently the ages of buffalo that are
sport-hunted for trophy purposes. This is my opinion and also
that of many PH’s and safari operators, Here are the facts:.
Photo 4: Buffalo Bull approx. 8 Yrs. The boss is just about
solid, and horn tips have dropped to boss level
Buffalo bulls are usually old big and strong enough physically to challenge for the right to breed by their 8th year. By that
age, their bosses will be sufficiently hard enough for them to
head bash, while their horn tips will usually have dropped to or
below boss level.
Photo 3: Buffalo Bull 5 to 6 Yrs - Forehead still hairy and the
horn tips are still sharp and sticking up above boss level
Bull buffalo are sexually mature at approximately 5 to 6
years old. By this age, the horn tips are sharp and they will usually stick up well above the level of the forehead. The forehead
will still be covered with course, spares hair. There will be no
boss per se and PH’s will refer to this bull as being ‘green’.
Bull buffalo fight for the right to breed. Such occasions are
‘push and shove’, ‘test of strength’, affairs.
The object of the exercise is simply to determine which bull
Photo 5: Approx. 10 Yrs old breeding bull. Boss completely
solid, horn tips well below boss level
The peak breeding age for a buffalo bulls is their 9th and 10th
years. Sometime in their 11th year, breeding bulls will usually be
replaced by younger, stronger and fitter individuals.
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
Continued on Page 12
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Page 12
Continued from Page 11
Cape Buffalo: Is the SCI Scoring System Wrong? By Kevin Robertson
Photo 8: Current SCI Number 5 is of a similar age.
Photo 6: An exceptional, approximately 11Yrs old solid
bossed buffalo bull
Horn rubbing is an important part of dominant, breeding bull
behavior. This wears the horn tips down. While not so important with regards to the Rowland Ward system of measurement,
this practice, together with the fact that the horn tips drop as the
bull matures, has a significant influence on a bull’s SCI measurement. In a nutshell, a bull, regardless of his initial horn size,
will score less and ever less on the SCI system of measurement
as he matures and progressed from a pre-breeding through to a
breeding and then to a post-breeding bull. As I see it, this is the
primary flaw with this measuring system.
The current top ranking SCI bull, and the current no’s 5, 10
and 17 were all pre-breeding, 6 to 7 year old bulls at the time
they were collected.
Photo 7: Current Number 1 SCI – The bull is soft bossed. A
number of independent buffalo authorities have aged this
bull to be 7 years old. The chances that he got to breed
before being shot are remote
Photo 9: Current SCI Number 10 is also a really young, prebreeding soft-bossed bull
Photo 10: This exceptional 6 year old bull was the SCI no. 1.
It now ranks no. 17. What a pity it never got to breed as it
truly was a magnificent specimen.
Continued on Page 13
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Page 13
Continued from Page 12
Cape Buffalo: Is the SCI Scoring System Wrong? By Kevin Robertson
One does not have to be Einstein to realize the long term effect of shooting genetically superior specimens before they have
a chance to pass on their genes, and already this is becoming
evident. Average trophy size in those countries where Southern
buffalo are regularly hunted is dropping, and quickly. It is my
belief that this is a direct result of this simple fact. A scoring system which places more emphasis on a bull’s boss development
and encourages the shooting of old, post breeding-age bulls
needs to be implemented, and the sooner the better. (At this
point in time, one of the suggestions for a new method is to use
the Rowland Ward, straight-line method, and add the ‘over the
top’ measurement of both bosses for a final score.)
Photo 11: This is a mature huntable Bull
A scoring system which encourages the shooting of
bulls like shown on photo 11 and leaves those like the one
on photo 12 to breed, needs to be developed and implemented. I voiced my concerns on this matter in my first buffalo book, ‘Nyati’. Unfortunately, my requests for a revision
of the SCI scoring system went unheard.
CIC Measuring Method
Photo 12: This Bull should be left alone
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force
African Indaba eNewsletter Volume 5, Number 3 Special issue
Red Deer Stag Classification
in Europe
By Prof. Dr. Klaus Hackländer
In Austria and other European countries red deer stags
are classified into categories which find their basis in the
formation of the respective stag’s antlers. Such classification of middle-aged stags into categories IIa and IIb has led
to a lively discussion, which questions such classification.
At the 24th Information Day on Game Ecology in Klagenfurt/Carinthia the author gave a keynote presentation on this
issue to provide an answer to the question: has the classification of red deer a future in modern game management?
In modern game management the requirements of alternative land use, such as agriculture and forestry as well as sociopolitical conditions have to be considered. State-of-the-art
knowledge in wildlife biology and ecology needs to be integrated
too. This leads inevitably to conflicts with the “dreams” of hunters, which often enough direct most attention to the form and
size of the antlers.
At present middle-aged red deer stags are classified into:
¾ Class IIb: all 5-9 year-old stags (five age-groups from the
completion of the fifth up to the completion of the tenth
year) with antlers, which compared to the stag’s age, are
below average as well as stags with notably low live weight;
¾ Class IIa all 5-9 year-old stags (five age-groups from the
completion of the fifth up to the completion of the tenth
year), which are not included to the stag class IIb. These
stags are not to be hunted!
Today’s hunters have already assimilated this grading according to quality standards, and to most of them it appears to
have always been like this. However, the history of deer quality
standards – a history of deer management objectives and “trophy mania” – is quite recent and dates back to the beginning of
the 20th century. It was around the turn of the 19th to the 20th
century when antlers were given as trophies to the hunter; in
earlier times the antlers stayed with the body of the animal on its
way to the trade. Eventually, trophies were displayed at international game fairs and comparisons were made. This lead to the
development of scoring formulas and the definition of anthropocentric “beauty-ideals”. In principle they are still valid today.
Red Deer Classification in the German Hunting Law
The German Hunting Law of 1934 originally established a
red deer management plan. A regulation to § 37 defines the red
deer quality classes still valid today in many European countries:
“(2) ... when establishing a harvest plan for male ungulates one can separate between trophy specimens
and non-trophy specimens. Non-trophy specimens
can be subdivided into animals with trophy potential
and others which have to be culled for management
purposes.”
Trophy stags (German “jagdbare Hirsche”) are identical our
present day class I stags, non-trophy stags with potential those
of our present class IIa and those “other” stags, which have to
be culled belong today to class IIb.
Page 14
This regulation led in consequence to the definition of guidelines regulating which stags should or could be hunted. The
objective of the exercise was a red deer population with good
antler quality. Stags which were considered of “bad” antler quality or of “genetic inferiority” were gradually culled and eliminated.
Those young stags with “promising antlers” (i. e. with some sort
of crown in the terminal antler points) were strictly preserved.
Older “trophy stags” (German “jagdbare Hirsche”) were subject
to a very conservative harvesting schedule.
How good are “good” stags?
Stags with multi-point antlers meet the desires of many
hunters. Yet, these stags may not be the best stags from the
biological viewpoint. Therefore research projects were conducted to clarify this question. A Spanish project, for example,
looked for the correlation between fecundity and antler size. The
results have shown that stags with multi-pointed antlers have
larger testes and also better sperm quality and are therefore
more fertile (Malo et al. 2005).
But: antler quality depends only partly on genetic conditioning. Age and habitat, amongst other factors, weigh in heavily –
around 75% - on antler development (Kruuk et al. 2002). It follows that the antlers are only of limited value for the classification of stags into quality classes such as “preserve” or “eliminate”. Antlers do not always broadcast “honest” signals” – not
even during the rut, since female deer do not seem to be influenced in their partner selection by the number of points on a
stag’s antlers.
Through selection to the management goal
The next question: can selective culling based on antler
quality lead to the defined management goal of multi-pointed
heavy antlers? Extensive genetic studies were conducted in
Europe and the USA. The results gave clear evidence that consistent culling of poor-antlered stags has positive outcomes on
the antler formation of the remaining population (Thelen 1991).
The formation of multi-pointed antlers exhibiting “crowns” is,
therefore genetically prescribed, but where?
In a red deer population, which is not subject to a hunting
regimen, all male individuals have a different antler growth potential. Whether these stags will produce multi-pointed or poorquality antlers depends on their genetic disposition. Two gene
loci, depending on age, influence antler growth (Hartl et al.
1995). With young stags, from the 3rd up to the 8th year, this is
happening within the genetic structure (genotype) at a certain
place of the DNA. With older stags, from the 9th year onwards,
the genetic structure at a different place is crucial. Within these
two loci, different genotypes, responsible for antler formation,
can be found. This is very similar to persons having the disposition for height at the same locus, yet all are different, taller or
shorter – subject to the individual life quality. If now only certain
stags with desirable antler development are allowed in a population, and all others are culled for poor antler quality, the frequency of the genotype with the characteristic “poor antler” will
decrease.
In natural populations there is no or virtually no selection directed towards multi-ended antlered specimens (Thelen 1991).
Consequently a relatively large gene pool is maintained, mean-
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Red Deer Stag Classification in Austria by Klaus Hackländer
ing a great diversity of different antler forms. The selective harvesting of red deer stags based on antler formation leads to an
imbalance of genetic diversity in a population. This genetic diversity is, however, crucial for the long-term survival of a population and important to adapt to changing environmental conditions.
An additional problem arises, since the gene loci define several characteristics in the individual. The locus responsible for
antler formation in the age classes III and II also holds the key
for fecundity in female deer and to the survival rate of calves
(Pemberton et al. 1988/1991). Artificial selection can therefore
lead to genetic impoverishment and change parameters which
influence population growth rates. Classification according to
antler quality and deer management along these lines will eventually achieve the planned objective, but only at the expense of
the loss of other desirable or species-typical features.
Principle of sustainability
Some of the advocates of the IIa-stag-regulation argue that
such deer management methods are essential to establish red
deer populations with an appropriate age and social structure
and to sustainably use them through hunting. This is, however,
total contradiction to the socio-political criteria and indicators of
sustainable hunting. The Austrian Ministry of Agriculture published a brochure, (available online at: www.biodiv.at/chm/jagd)
which enables each owner or leaseholder of hunting areas
(German expression “revier”) to evaluate the own hunting area
according to prescribed sustainability criteria. These criteria
clearly define that hunting practises must neither limit the natural
genetic diversity of game species nor inhibit conservation.
Based on these guidelines of the Ministry of Agriculture we
must view aesthetical trophy parameters in hunting regulations
as extremely problematic. The question whether hunting enhances or limits the natural genetic diversity of game animals
can be answered: do the hunting guidelines for ungulates support or accept the diversity of potential antler- or horn formations,
or do the regulations further anthropocentric trophy-aesthetic
aspects. Indeed, certain antler- or horn formations, undesirable
from the trophy-aesthetic viewpoint, may be of considerable
advantage for its bearer from the biological viewpoint.
We can, therefore, state unambiguously: selective harvesting – with or without defined management objective – is contradictory to sustainable hunting.
Management goal of the future
The decade-long selection for wide-spread, multi-pointed
and long antler beams can change essential parameters of red
deer population dynamics. Furthermore, it may create problems
for future hunter generations who may prefer stags with antler
formation according to their then valid fashions. Maybe in 50
years heavy antlers with few tines will be „fashionable“. Yet the
genetic potential for such formations will be lost due to our selection methods
From the socio-political viewpoint a further question can be
raised: Can a minute minority decide how the stag of the future
in Europe has to look like? Hunters are already a minority in
society, and red deer hunters are only a part of the hunting
Page 15
community. Do we really want to judge the red deer of the future
based on antler formation and thus to reduce the value of this
game species dramatically? Examples from deer management
associations in Austria show alternatives to the conventional
deer management objectives. Their results support that it is possible to achieve substantial hunting success without classifications based on antler formation. Along these lines we will
achieve the long term maintenance and strength of the intrinsic
values and joys of hunting, because outside criticism will have
no foundation at all. In line with this, the deer stag classification
has been removed from the Carinthian Hunting Law after this
presentation.
Contact details of the author:
Univ. Prof. Dr. Klaus Hackländer, Institute of Game Biology
and Management (IWJ), Department for Integrative Biology and
Biodiversity Research, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Gregor-Mendel-Str. 33, A-1180 Vienna,
Austria
Sacrificial Ram
By Daniel Duane (edited for space)
What do you think you'd feel — you, the lover of wilderness,
the Sierra Club member, the admirer of great Western
megafauna — while watching a globe-trotting millionaire gringo
hunter, level a custom 300 Winchester Magnum on a rare and
elusive bighorn ram, steady his breathing, and pull the trigger?
Do you think you'd feel revulsion? Do you think the rifle's boom
would violate the exquisite mountain silence? Do you imagine
yourself lamenting that one fewer of those magnificent animals
would animate the Baja desert?
I'm asking because I wasn't certain of my own answer, even
as I hid in the red rimrock of the Tres Virgines volcano, looking
into a canyon. Nine Mexican guides, all in ragtag outfits of castoff camo were likewise huddled low, and Ramon Arce, their 62year-old leader, was whispering to the hunter, Brian Drettmann,
about which ram Drettmann should kill.
I'd never watched an animal shot in the wild, much less a
rare and threatened one, and I found myself transfixed. Given
the austere mountains they inhabit, the eyesight that lets them
see humans a mile away, and the specialized hooves that allow
them to rockclimb at breathtaking speeds, not many people get
the privilege of seeing a bighorn, much less killing one.
I was transfixed, too, by Drettmann, the polite 36-year-old
Midwesterner about to do the shooting, and by the fact that he
wasn't second-guessing Arce. He had to feel a temptation, I
figured, to get one of the Mexicans who spoke good English to
ask Arce just what he thought that ram would score in the Boone
and Crockett system. One-sixty, maybe? One-seventy? Or even
higher? And what about those other rams in the frigid winter fog:
Any chance they were bigger still? After all, in an auction pitting
him against other big-game hunters, Drettmann had paid dearly
for this once-in-a-lifetime shot at a desert bighorn, the most
prized of the four wild sheep species that comprise a North
American “grand slam.”
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Sacrificial Ram by Daniel Duane
Drettmann had already bagged an Alaskan Dall sheep and a
Stone's sheep in British Columbia, and he'd wandered halfway
across Alberta looking for a Rocky Mountain bighorn, and now
he'd flown clear down here, driven hundreds of desert miles,
ridden a mule into the high country, weathered a savage
overnight storm in a substandard nylon tent and pushed himself
to exhaustion to get to this vantage point.
Chambering a shell, Drettmann was understandably
nervous, his big frame shaking and his cheeks flushed red. Two
days earlier, on an empty desert road, I'd watched as he
calibrated his rifle to shoot a few inches high at 150 yards. Now
the range finder wasn't working and he had to take a guess.
Worse still, with these clouds coming and going, it wouldn't be
hard to kill the wrong ram, and that would be a small disaster.
After all, Drettmann wasn't stalking this animal just for fun. In
an unusual approach to environmental fundraising -- call it freemarket wildlife conservation -- the Wyoming-based Foundation
for North American Wild Sheep (FNAWS) has struck deals with
21 U.S., Canadian, and Mexican states in which FNAWS gets to
auction a precious few bighorn hunting permits in return for
giving 90 percent of the proceeds back to those states' sheep
conservation programs. Drettmann had paid tens of thousands
of dollars to come down here, further encouraged by the fact that
the hunt would occur on a southern Baja ejido, a form of
government-mandated collective property. Because this land
also falls within the Vizcaino Biosphere—the Mexican equivalent
of a wilderness area, and therefore closed to most forms of
development—the 142 indigenous rural families of ejido
Licensiado Alfredo V. Bonfil don't have many ways to make a
living. Since 1996, however, the FNAWS auction system has
brought them an average of $200,000 a year, funding a drinking
water project, a school, a health clinic, conservation programs
centered on the nearly extinct Baja pronghorn antelope and the
Baja mule deer, and, of course, the bighorn project that employs
the dozen ejidatarios who'd spent the past few weeks gauging
the age and size of every ram in the range to make sure
Drettmann got the biggest rack possible.
By helping locals exploit the economic potential of the
wildlife on their land, FNAWS has given the collective an
incentive to preserve both that wildlife and its habitat. Since
FNAWS got involved, ejidatarios have been clearing brush
around watering holes to reduce cover for stalking mountain
lions, they've taught their neighbors to keep domestic goats and
sheep (and the lethal diseases they carry) away from the
bighorn, and they've successfully cracked down on poaching. As
a result, there may well be less sheep hunting within the
Vizcaino Biosphere, where four permits are granted annually,
than in areas of northern Baja, where an outright ban is in place
but not enforced. “In the old days, sheep hunters would come in
and hire ejidatarios to take them on the hunt, and the money did
not go to the ejido,” says Ramón Castellanos, the ejido's chief
sheep biologist. “But now everybody in the ejido wants the
bighorn because it means business and money for them.”
In just 7 years, the biosphere's bighorn herd has nearly
doubled, to 400. And the more sheep there are, the more rams
Page 16
can be sustainably harvested, a fact that was evident in the eyes
of the ejidatarios who'd guided Drettmann up the volcano and
pinpointed the [ram] for him. Drettmann peered through the mist
and exchanged soft whispers with his longtime hunting
companion, Tim Gauthier, a wildlife filmmaker who was quietly
shooting the entire scene. Any minute now, Arce -- whose own
father guided sheep hunts here in the 1930s -- would give
Drettmann the all clear to take a shot, and if Drettmann's aim
was true, and a rare 200-pound wild sheep dropped dead in the
volcanic rocks, every one of these men would know he had done
his job, that the project of bringing these animals back to healthy
numbers would be a step closer to completion.
According to Valerius Geist, a wildlife biologist and author of
several books on wild sheep, the wake-up call on their dwindling
numbers came back in 1974, when the National Audubon
Society, the Wildlife Management Institute, and the Boone and
Crockett Club held a workshop at the University of Montana,. It
emerged that habitat reduction, overhunting by meat suppliers to
the early railroad builders and gold rush miners, and, most of all,
the diseases borne by domestic cattle and sheep had all but
wiped out North America's wild sheep, which now occupied less
than 4 percent of their original range. To the hunters present, the
implied tragedy wasn't just aesthetic or even ecological -- it was
also practical: Future generations wouldn't have the same
hunting opportunities they'd had. Sheep hunting was already
banned in most states, and the few that allowed it only did so
through a lottery for a handful of permits.
At first, those hunters just shared what they knew about
sheep hunts that were still available and tried to make state
officials prioritize sheep conservation. But by the late '70s, it was
clear there would never be enough political traction to save the
bighorn from extinction. So they incorporated FNAWS as a
nonprofit and in 1979 started approaching the various states with
wild sheep populations and saying, in essence, Give us one or
two sheep hunting permits, we'll auction them to the highest
bidder, and we'll give the proceeds right back to you, earmarked
for conservation.
For those perplexed by people who want to save wild
animals in order to kill them, the confusion will deepen during a
flip through magazines like Big Game Adventure. Right
alongside an article celebrating how FNAWS auctions help
ejidatarios “learn about the economic value of wildlife and
continued conservation practices” lie advertisements that make
a liberal worry he's in NRA-wacko territory after all. “For 30
years,” reads one full-page spread, “the Safari Club International
has been a tireless champion against extremist groups attacking
your right to hunt.… Join the hunter patriots helping freedom
ring.” Although this language has a rhetorical toxicity outside of
hunting culture, groups like FNAWS, which now has 19,000
members and has auctioned the right to kill a single Rocky
Mountain bighorn for as much as $405,000, are part of an old
tradition in American hunting, one that has seen a dramatic
resurgence in the last few years. It was President Theodore
Roosevelt -- arguably the godfather of American hunting
conservation -- who wrote, “In a civilized country, wild animals
only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. The
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Sacrificial Ram by Daniel Duane
excellent people who protest against all hunting and consider
sportsmen as enemies [do not understand] that in reality the
genuine sportsman is, by all odds, the most important factor in
keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total
extermination.” And while groups like the American Humane
Society make reasonable arguments against any form of killing
for sport, many in the environmental community applaud what
FNAWS has done. Tom Stephenson, a bighorn sheep biologist
with the California Dept of Fish and Game, says, “When hunters
get interested in an animal, it's often the best thing that can
happen to that species.”
David Lavigne, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare,
is often critical of "sustainable use" proponents who advocate
the economic exploitation of wildlife as a conservation tool—
such as the recent decision by the Venezuelan government to
back off a ban on the trapping of macaws in favor of granting
indigenous locals the right to sell a small number, thereby giving
them incentive to preserve the birds and their habitat. FNAWS is
different, says Lavigne, in that the hunts provide conservation
funds without promoting a larger marketplace for endangered
wildlife. "I would rather have a skillful hunter take one or two
bighorn and provide conservation revenues," says Lavigne,
"than have a commercial hunt, which attracts all sorts of folks
into this business, killing many more animals."
FNAWS itself currently auctions 25 to 30 permits per year,
generating more than $2 million annually, for a to-date total of
more than $24 million. Since FNAWS got rolling, wild sheep
populations have rebounded fourfold, and if any reader of this
[article] gets a chance to glimpse one someday, they will
arguably owe some measure of thanks to people whose favorite
way to view a ram is through the crosshairs of a rifle scope. The
same goes for many other wild animals, as hunting-based
conservation groups like the Mule Deer Foundation and even the
Safari Club International have followed the FNAWS example. "If
you want to see cowboys cry," says Geist, "just go to the Rocky
Mountain Elk Foundation. These men care so much they get all
choked up." Then there are the waterfowl groups like Ducks
Unlimited: Founded in 1937, it has raised $1.8 billion for
conservation and saved ca 10 million wetlandacres.
In the view of Ray Lee, the president of FNAWS, "A lot of
antihunting types make the mistake of looking at the individual
animal as most important." Lee is a former Arizona state fish and
game official and university lecturer on wildlife biology. "By doing
that," he says, "you forgo the population. When a person thinks
of what the hunter is doing as merely killing an individual animal,
then they're saying, ‘This can't be right.' I look at it and say, ‘If I
can take an individual hunter and use this person's resources to
do [good for conservation, it is right}.
The individual hunter with resources in this case, of course,
was Brian Drettmann. He got his first taste of hunting on the
farm of a family friend. When he took him to a FNAWS
convention, it made such an impression that Drettmann put
hunting and wildlife conservation at the center of his life.
Drettmann doesn't fit the classic image of the hunter. He
does have a somewhat rural Midwestern accent, from all his
Page 17
time in the woods. His style of dress is still inflected by the
preppy private schools of his youth, and there's a certain
effortless, shabby-chic refinement to the way he holds a
cigarette and enjoys an evening cocktail, even in a rough
hunting camp. But Drettmann has immersed himself in hunting
culture. While he has speculative real estate holdings from
Florida to Costa Rica, Drettmann's primary business and parttime home is a thousand-acre Michigan ranch where clients pay
top dollar to bow-hunt whitetail deer in perfect seclusion. And
Merkel's influence has also been a lasting one. A few years ago,
Drettmann donated $12,000 for the FNAWS-sponsored
construction of a watering hole in Arizona in order to lure sheep
back to the area.
In January 2004, Drettmann flew out to the annual FNAWS
convention in Reno, Nevada, to bid on the hunt that brought him
to Baja. The auction was held in a casino ballroom with stuffed
sheep mounted in various poses and a backlit screen of a starry
night sky. "It's sort of a glitz and glimmer, the whole layout,"
recalls Gauthier, who videotaped the event. "The majority of the
people buying these auctions are not your average Joe. It's
usually people with jack." A scantily clad model displayed prints
and sculptures also on auction, and when the bidding finally
began, at a floor of $25,000, Drettmann's competitors included
Kevin Rinke. Rinke needed one more desert bighorn to complete
his second grand slam, and the bidding jumped to $40,000 in
less than a minute.
As the numbers start climbing, Drettmann "was getting pretty
geeked," according to Gauthier. "But he was staying calm, too.
When you're spending that kind of money you don't go just
yahooing." Drettmann and Rinke are going mano-a-mano,
bidding back and forth, until Drettmann bids $48,000, and Rinke
drops out. But it's not over. Another bidder from the back of the
room joins in—$49,000. When the bidding climbs to $56,000,
Drettmann grins and shakes his head, as if ready to quit. "Now
you been with us all this way," the auctioneer calls out to him, "I
sure don't want to sell you out now." So Drettmann gives the nod
-- $57,000 -- and his competitor counters, $58,000. "Go have a
swig out of that Bloody Mary," the auctioneer bellows to
Drettmann. "Have a swig. There you go. Now give me $59,000.
It's only money!" Half laughing at himself, Drettmann nods one
more time and the delighted auctioneer calls out to the man in
the back, "Okay! Give me 60! You never saw a U-Haul Trailer
behind a hearse! You'll have a great hunt, and we only live once.
You don't want to tell your friends I gave $59,000 for this hunt!
You want to go in there and say this wasn't no blue-light special
at Wal-Mart!"
But the mystery gunman is done. And while that lovely, leggy
model stands on the stage with the next item to auction -- a 270
Winchester Short Mag rifle -- Ray Lee congratulates Drettmann
on a winning bid of $59,000.
Eleven months later, Drettmann's hunt began at the dusty
Bonfil base camp, where he immediately offered Arce a carton of
his own cigarettes, so they'd share the same smokes on this
adventure. Drettmann tested his gun and enjoyed a scoping
mission below the grand conical volcano. Arce and another
guide, José Luis Chavarria, used an enormous pair of antique
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Sacrificial Ram by Daniel Duane
binoculars—and Drettmann's top-drawer Leica spotting scope—
to pick out sheep more than a mile away, and there was a lot of
careful calculation about the various rams visible. Were they
Class Three? Or Class Four? (Meaning, between six and eight
years old, or more than eight and therefore old enough to
harvest.) And how high would their racks score?
Early the next morning, Drettmann and Gauthier followed on
mules while the guides and I walked, and by mid-afternoon we'd
reached spike camp. The ejidatarios built a fire, set up tents and
jury-rigged rock-and-tarp shanties for themselves. An utterly wild
storm hit around midnight, with 50-mile-an-hour gusts driving
firehose downpours, and at 4 a.m., when the sky cleared, the
soaking-wet guides built another fire and huddled around it.
Drettmann was the first of the gringos awake, and by 7 a.m.
he'd remounted. When the going got too steep for the mules,
Drettmann joined the guides on foot, carrying his rifle and
spotting scope while Gauthier lugged a big Betamax video
camera. After several hours, Arce indicated that it was time for
whispering and stealth, led us quietly to the edge of Canyon 33,
and gestured down at those 28 ewes, lambs, and rams. Arce
and Chavarria whispered back and forth, agreeing on which ram
was the biggest and the oldest, and then came the moment of
truth — time to pull the trigger. Turning to Arce, Drettmann
double-checked which ram they had in mind, "it's the ram that's
eating, right? His head's in the bush right now?"
The answer mattered partly because a Mexican game
warden would be checking to make sure they took a ram old
enough to be legal — at least nine years of age, nearing the end
of its expected life span -- and partly because Drettmann wasn't
the only one who wanted the ram to be a big one. Getting a
substantial score in the Boone and Crockett record books -- 170
or higher -- would be a feather in Drettmann's cap, but for the
locals it could dramatically raise the price fetched at next year's
auction.
Arce peered through the absurdly large binoculars and
nodded as he whispered to Chavarria, who translated: "He's
eating at the tree by the big rock."
"I mean, is his ass facing uphill?" Drettmann asked. "Is he
the one I can see his ass?"
It took another series of barely whispered and poorly
translated exchanges to establish that Drettmann was to shoot
the ram quartered to us, facing downhill and to the left. While he
found that ram in his crosshairs, Chavarria spoke up again.
"Wait, wait," he said. "There's a ewe behind the ram. Let the ewe
move." A rifle bullet could easily go right through the ram and
take the ewe too, and then there would be papers to file with the
government, explanations to be made, a sense of things gone
awry.
Then Arce hissed, "Okay, listo."
The gun's detonation echoed around the mountain, and the
sheep startled to attention. A furtive panic swept through the
crowd while Arce allowed himself a soft groan. A golden light
filtered across the blue Sea of Cortez, far below, and the fog
cleared a little, and it became evident that Drettmann had
missed. But now the range finder was working. "One-seventy-
Page 18
six," whispered another of the guides, eager to get Drett- mann a
second chance. "It's reading 176." So Drettmann laid the scope
back on the ram. "Then I took a breath," Drettmann recalled
later, referring to the slow exhale that steadies a trigger finger.
"And I just squeezed, and said, ‘Hail Mary and Lord bring this
one in,' and then they said, ‘You hit it!' I was just, you know, it
was like living a dream. I don't know if you've ever…I one time
flipped a car, and I totaled it, and I walked out of the car and
everything was in slow motion. By the time I walked up to that
ram, I was in awe."
Brian Drettmann’s Desert Ram
Despite their converging interests, a striking divide still
separates the rhetoric of hunters, whose culture comes out of
farming and ranching, and environmentalists, who often live in
an urban world and see untrammeled wilderness as a priceless
sanctuary. It's another of our tedious "two Americas," and
hunting culture is especially rife with a defensive loathing toward
"antis," meaning antihunting types. FNAWS's Lee, for example,
expresses frustration about people who don't like copper mines,
but enjoy turning on the lights; people who want clean energy,
but don't want wind farms in their back yards. He sees a similar
double standard toward killing animals, "people saying, ‘I like to
eat steak, but I don't want anything to do with the killing. So long
as I can go to Safeway and buy a piece of meat wrapped in
plastic, then my hands are clean.' If I'm raised in an urban
situation, then I don't have to make the life-and-death decisions
that people living close to the ground have to. If you talk to a
farmer or a rancher, that's what they do. They raise food."
Lee explains that hunting transforms the way you look at the
land. "You're out there thinking, ‘Did an animal pass this way?
Are there tracks, or tears on the bushes, or rubs?' While a skier
might just be thinking, ‘Can I ski here?' a hunter's looking at the
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Sacrificial Ram by Daniel Duane
whole food chain, the interconnectivity. When you ask hunters,
they'll say, ‘I'm reconnecting with nature. I'm putting myself back
in. Because for the other 363 days a year, I'm getting Styrofoam
food. For two days, I'm reconnecting with what the last 3 million
years of human existence have been.'"
After that big ram dropped dead in the rocks, and 27 other
sheep sprinted single file through a sheer precipice, running for
their lives—a magnificent spectacle—the ejidatarios lit up with
relief and passed around a bottle of tequila. Drettmann was
visibly elated and shaking with adrenaline, a cigarette trembling
in his fingers. A red-tailed hawk looped into the returning
stillness of the now-vacant canyon and two crows—los
cuervos—chased away the hawk. Then we picked our way down
a cliff to the scene of the kill. The big, dun-colored animal
appeared to have simply fallen over on its side, a clean entry
wound visible in front of its rear leg. The bullet had exited at the
opposite foreleg, meaning it had been a perfect shot—right
through the lungs, and perhaps the heart. The ram had died so
quickly it hadn't even had time to bleed; its eyes remained wide
open, as if still watching us, impassive.
Arce gestured at the ram's brow and told me to smell, so I
pressed my nose into the forehead of that still-warm corpse and
smelled precisely the earthy scent of the blossoming desert plant
he'd pointed out in the soft dawn glow. The next hour was
devoted to photographs — the ejidatarios with the ram,
Drettmann with the ram, everyone individually with the ram,
myself included. And then Chavarria sank a hook-billed knife into
the skin behind the ram's head and began the long dorsal cut
that would let Arce cape the whole hide for the taxidermist
Drettmann would hire back home.
A taxidermist uses nothing but the skin, the hooves, and the
part of the skull that anchors the horns on a foam form, around
which the skin would be stretched. Arce left the entire head
intact and the bottom leg bone attached to each foot, so the
painstaking jobs of separating hooves from bone and facial skin
and lips from skull could be done back at camp. Arce then
butchered the remaining carcass, stuffing big slabs of meat into
plastic garbage bags so the men could carry them down the
mountain for a big fiesta a few days later. Leaving behind only
the spinal cord and the viscera, we hiked downward, a long and
ankle-twisting stumble back to spike camp. For the last hour, we
walked in the desert darkness toward a campfire that was like an
orange beacon twinkling below. Over a bed of mesquite embers,
Arce and Chavarria grilled tacos de borregos cimarrones and ate
them standing up in the cold desert night, and I found out for
myself what big-game hunters the world over will tell you: that
literally nothing tastes better than the tenderized backstrap of a
freshly killed bighorn ram, cooked over an open flame.
Daniel Duane’s “Sacrificial Ram” was originally published in
Mother Jones Magazine, March/April 2005 (Mother Jones is an
independent nonprofit whose roots lie in a commitment to social
justice implemented through first rate investigative reporting)
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/03/03_2005_Du
ane.html
Page 19
Hunters Shoot Themselves in
the Foot
By Ian Parker
I know all about shooting myself in the foot. As a young soldier, I did it. Coming off sentry duty I unloaded my ·303, counting
nine rounds out of the ten-shot magazine. The tenth seemed to
be missing, so I worked the bolt several times to no avail.
“Why do you do that so many times?” asked a comrade sitting by the fire.
“For safety,” I had replied and, thinking that the tenth round
must have fallen to the ground during the initial unloading, I
pulled the trigger. The tenth round had been hiding in the magazine all along and entered the chamber on the bolt’s last movement. There was a loud bang and as the muzzle was resting on
my foot – well, the rest is history. As I said, I know all about
shooting myself in the foot.
I know about hunting too. As a warden assigned to game
control and then a contractor undertaking large-scale culling
across East Africa, I have probably hunted more than most. I
appreciate that little of this was for my personal enjoyment and,
while on occasion the activity was unquestionably exciting, my
over-riding emotional state was little different to that when, as a
beef producer, I slaughter a steer. Done of necessity, there is no
pleasure in the act.
Don’t get me wrong … I do enjoy light bird shooting, though
again, satisfaction in pulling off a difficult shot notwithstanding,
there is no pleasure in actual killing. Similarly, I fish and, in my
mind fishing is a form of hunting. In both bird shooting and fishing I only take quarry that I enjoy eating. Pleasure from both
activities arises from the environments where they take place
and, overwhelmingly, from the company in which they are undertaken. An evening stroll out of camp with a couple of companions, to return with a brace or two of francolin or guineafowl, or a
quiet evening’s casting over forest pools and landing a threequarter pound trout, are experiences to be treasured.
Others might want more ‘body’ to their hunting and, relishing
a quotient of adrenalin and danger, want larger quarry. With that
I have no quarrel. I certainly understand that the difference between me taking a couple guineafowl and someone else stalking
a bushbuck – or a buffalo for that matter - is slight and relative.
The satisfactions derived are personal. Hunting, as I comprehend it, is a private undertaking both in the compulsions that
lead to it and in its rewards. One way or another, it is not a
‘spectator sport’ – which is why films about hunting fall so short
of the mark and do more damage than good to the hunter’s
reputation.
The philosophical arguments for and against hunting are ancient, interminable and largely pointless. Hunting may be cruel, it
may be atavistic, it may satiate drives that aesthetes preferred
didn’t exist: I’ll not dispute the charges (though this is no concession to verity or otherwise). What surely counts is that
throughout civilization’s history, wild animals have been conserved so that they can be hunted. Whatever the flaws in proContinued on Page 20
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Continued from Page 219
Hunters Shoot Themselves in the Foot by Ian Parker
hunting arguments, that fact is indisputable.
The most common and widespread reason resulting in successful conservation across time and cultures, has been to sustain hunting. Other reasons have been successful locally – but
none as generally effective as the measures taken to provide
hunters with quarry. In view of this success, it is profoundly stupid to turn against it. That, for me, is the strongest case for hunting.
Yet the manner in which hunting in Africa is widely conducted contradicts its own supporters’ claims of it being a sport.
It is the hunters who say that they get no enjoyment from the
actual act of killing, and that the sport lies in outwitting wary
quarry through skill, cunning and physical endeavor.
When animals are shot from vehicles – and let’s face it,
many are – then the only enjoyment has to be the act of killing,
for driving up to them in vehicles calls for no skill or physical
endeavor. When animals are reared as domesticants then taken
into the bush to be shot, that, too, undermines the hunters’
stated cases. As I have written in these pages before, hunting
big dangerous animals is, like mountaineering, a fit man’s sport.
Elderly, over-weight, unfit people who, at best, can only waddle
short distances cannot hunt. They are no doubt the reason why
so many animals in Africa are shot from vehicles.
In similar vein, the obsession with trophy quality seems to
override what hunters claim is the rationale for hunting. There
was a time when hunting involved endurance, tracking, getting
up to potential quarry, then turning it down, possibly going home
with nothing, because the trophies did not come up to the
hunter’s standard. Even those opposed to hunting acknowledged the endeavor and admired it.
The reward for that sort of hunting was intensely personal:
as I said earlier, hunting is not a spectator sport. Yet the extra
inch of horn that is now such a competitive element – particularly
in America – is difficult to divorce from public display.
I am well aware of all the economic arguments that favor the
short cuts and the ‘tupa nyuma’ style of hunting so prevalent
today. Safari hunting is a business, the customer is always right
and has to be satisfied. All these factors shape what is happening in Africa. It is disturbing, however, that so few hunters are
addressing the fundamental issues and tackling them head-on.
My point: I believe that hunting can produce effective conservation and that this is a powerful argument in its favor. Yet
hunters shoot themselves in the foot when they fail to abide by
the ‘ethics’ and arguments through which they justify themselves. If, in the end, hunting loses ground in Africa, then this
failure will have contributed in large measure to that loss.
Visit the African Indaba Website for
cutting-edge information about hunting and conservation in Africa
www.africanindaba.co.za
Page 20
Trophy Hunting: The Professional Hunter’s Dilemma
By Stewart Dorrington, President, and Peter Butland, President-Elect of the Professional Hunters' Association of South Africa (PHASA)
The Hunter
The hunter’s desire for a trophy, a memento of the hunt, a
reminder of the sweet and the bitter of past hunts, is as old as
mankind itself. From the rock art of ancient man, adorning the
walls of his cave, to the heads and horns lining the walls of the
modern trophy room, trophies have served to give immortality to
the hunted animal.
For some, a photograph will suffice, a private reminder of a
personal experience, or a small item, used daily, made from the
hide or horn of a fondly remembered animal. A bag of biltong,
personally made and slowly savored by the hunter, piece by
piece through the long hunting off-season, while not conventionally seen as a trophy, is certainly a memento of the hunt.
For others, the animal lives on through the art of the taxidermist, to be enjoyed by the hunter and shared with those back
home, those who do not have the privilege of visiting far places
and seeing at first hand the living wonders of the natural world.
Such hunters will remember for each trophy, each stalk, each
shot and each follow up. Eyes will light up in the retelling and the
sharing of each tale.
For others still, there are systems in place whereby they plan
their hunting lives, working their way through lists of species and
sub-species, recording their progress and earning credits as
they do so, and setting goals for the future.
And for yet others, the trophy is no longer a memento of the
hunt. It has become an end in itself. It has become tangible evidence of of an achievement. It is part of the constant challenge
thrown out from man to man to compete, to measure one
against the other, to achieve perceived success and to demonstrate dominance.
Cultural background has an inevitable influence on the
hunter’s trophy expectations and his hunting motivations.
“Is it old?” may be a question to pass some hunters’ lips.
Worn down tips, thick, gnarled bases or bosses, cracked and
green with fighting and rubbing are the attributes of a mature
animal, which is approaching the natural end of its life cycle.
Broken or malformed horns are fine. “That is nature,” the
hunter will say.
“Is it bigger than Karl’s?” may be the first concern of others.
As Pop said to Hemingway, “It’s impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.”
Husbands and wives, friends and brothers have all had relationships strained and hunts soured by the insidious competitive
spirit of man being allowed to intrude on the hunt to the exclusion of appreciation of the multi-facetted wonders which make
up a holistic hunting experience.
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
Continued on Page 21
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Continued from Page 20
Trophy Hunting: The Professional Hunter’s Dilemma by Stewart Dorrington
& Peter de Villiers Butland
The Professional Hunter
The professional hunter will in time face a wide spectrum of
these desires.
It is not for him to be judgmental about the motivations of his
hunting clients. They are products of their upbringing, of their
cultures, of the world in which they live and of the pressures
under which they are placed, or place themselves. And were it
not for them in their totality, with all their good and all their bad,
with all their strengths and all their weaknesses, he would not be
a professional hunter. There would be no hunting profession.
It is the professional hunter’s job to do his very best to meet
his clients’ expectations. He must empathize with his clients,
seek to understand their cultural backgrounds and meet their
reasonable expectations. He must meet his clients’ material
needs and see to their safekeeping. He must try to open their
eyes to the beauties of the natural world, sharing with the client
his knowledge and understanding of that world. He must guide
them in the hunt as best he possibly can, in accordance with his,
the professional hunters, value system.
The Dilemma
And this is where the professional hunter’s dilemma arises.
What should be the guiding principles upon which his value system is based?
Great strides have been made in nature conservation in
Southern Africa in recent decades. Scientific, social and economic principles have been applied to the benefit of wild life and
the environment. Increasing wildlife numbers have been widely,
but not universally, matched by improved trophy quality. Successes in habitat restoration, the rebirth of biodiversity in previously devastated areas and the reintroduction and conservation
of wildlife should be honored and respected by every professional hunter. That respect should underpin his value system.
A genuine, informed and applied concern for the well being
of the wildlife in his hunting area will, therefore, be a good starting point. Over time it will make a difference. It will make a difference to wildlife, the environment, to the clients’ respect for
him as a person and for the profession in which he operates.
But does the professional hunter have the luxury of time?
A soundly based ethical code of hunting is an essential further element of the professional hunter’s value system. But does
he have the strength of character to impose it on a strong willed
client with his own, perhaps very different, hunting ethic and
ambition?
In their heart of hearts, most professional hunters know what
it is that should form the basis of their value systems. But the
pressures of the modern world intrude on all aspects of life. The
influence of these pressures in the hunting field can and does
lead to corruption. Competition among peers and the desire to
see their names in the record book are real temptations to professional hunters too.
There is widespread concern that in many parts of the world
the record books are compromising much of what hunting is all
Page 21
about. African hunting – with its wide variety of species – is particularly affected. The record books and award programs have
turned an individualistic pastime into an occasionally fierce competition. Fair chase, hunting traditions and sound conservation
principles often fall by the wayside.
Far too many visiting hunters have only limited time available
and yet they want to hunt a long “shopping list of trophy animals”. And many hunters want record trophies – in the “top ten”,
wherever possible. These expectations are simply unrealistic,
but they put the professional hunter under extreme pressure.
Importantly too, it’s the professional hunter’s reputation, which is
at stake. What does he do, if the visiting hunter's objectives are
nothing short of high scoring record trophies and if the client
insists on unfair chase methods to achieve his goals? If he disregards the client’s wishes, an unfavorable hunt report may be
the result. And unfavorable news travel fast in the hunting world.
Is it reasonable to expect a professional hunter or outfitter to put
his business success at stake?
For an outfitter and professional hunter, the economic dilemma is augmented by the enormous market power vested into
the record books by international hunting associations. Professional hunting associations and individual professional hunters
have been critical of the present recording and award procedures and its system-immanent abuses. Unfortunately, the hunting associations have not to date addressed the issues on an
internationally coordinated, industry wide basis.
There is only one way to change this situation – hunting associations must look for a solution which adequately considers
the interests of all, and importantly also those of biodiversity
conservation. Sustainable trophy hunting requires that game
populations be managed according to biological principles – and
not those dictated by the figures of a scoring system. Killing a
high scoring, yet immature buffalo bull has serious implications
on sustainability. This applies not only to buffalo, but to all game
in general.
Last but not least a word about hunting ethics. It is generally
said that ethics are valid in the eye of the beholder only. What is
ethically acceptable hunting practice in one culture or on one
continent may be unethical in another. But let us not forget that
hunting ethics are the result of thousands of years of hunting
traditions – they change and evolve with the times, but one thing
is for sure, their origin and purpose is in one key factor called
sustainability.
The Challenge
We would like to issue a challenge for all hunters and in particular for the international hunting associations. Although this
challenge emanates from Africa, we are sure that it applies to all
continents. The challenge is to decide what is right and what is
wrong and to determine what your own personal value system
should and will be. The real challenge then will be to stand by
what you believe is right. And if alone, it is a challenge to strive
to stand steadfast and to lead steadfastly by example. Let us
analyze the conflicting demands, emotions and beliefs; let us get
the scientific evidence and most importantly, let us arrive at solu-
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
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Continued from Page 21
Trophy Hunting: The Professional Hunter’s Dilemma by Stewart Dorrington
& Peter de Villiers Butland
tions which will benefit wildlife!
Of course the challenge points towards the international
hunting associations and their members, but significantly, it also
addresses the professional hunters and guides here in Africa
and around the world.
We, as the professionals in the hunting field, need to
show our visiting hunters what hunting is really about. That the
fulfillment in hunting is not found in inches and points, but in a
holistic, participative experience in natural surroundings. Anything else lessens the value of the experience. A trophy obtained
easily is not well remembered nor cherished, whereas the one
that has been hard earned will always be respected and cherished, as will the memory of the hunt and the animal.
There are a good number of highly dedicated professional
hunters who are conducting their safaris, (and hunting clients
who hunt), in this way. There are those professionals who refuse
unacceptable demands and turn their backs on the money There
are those who are seeking a different way to evaluate trophies,
to achieve desired ends and to avoid undesirable results.
On one thing we can all agree. We wish to preserve our
hunting heritage for posterity. To do so we all need to ask ourselves where we as hunters stand in meeting the challenge.
Predator Conservation and
Hunting in Kenya
By Dr. Stephanie S. Romañach
Human-wildlife conflict is one of major reasons why predators are declining in number throughout Africa. Predators are
often killed in response to attacks on livestock, and sometimes
are killed preemptively as a perceived threat.
In Kenya, wildlife has very little, if any, value to most of its
citizens. As a result, wildlife population numbers have been decreasing over the last three decades, with recorded declines of
40 - 90% for most species. The beginning of the steep population declines coincided with Kenya’s ban on trophy hunting in
1977.
Wildlife in Kenya is owned by the government, not by landowners. Some East and southern African countries have devolved full user rights of wildlife to its citizens, allowing people to
profit from wildlife on their land. These profits serve as financial
incentives for wildlife conservation on privately- and, in some
cases, on communally-owned land. In recent years these incentives have led to major increases in the amount of land used for
wildlife in South Africa and Namibia, and, on a smaller scale, in
Botswana and Zambia.
Page 22
The Laikipia plateau in central Kenya represents a stronghold for wildlife conservation. The region is not formally protected, but holds high densities of wildlife mixed with livestock,
and some agriculture. Wildlife populations are increasing, including significant populations of cheetahs, lions, leopards, hyenas,
and endangered African wild dogs. But livestock densities are
high, and there are increasing incidences of conflict between
people and predators over livestock.
In 2005, I completed a survey of Kenyans in the Laikipia region to explore potential means of promoting coexistence between people and predators. I gained the help of a few assistants to conduct interviews in the multiple native languages used
in the communal lands. We completed 416 one-on-one interviews with community members and commercial ranchers to
learn about their attitudes toward predators, policies for lethal
control when livestock are attacked, and prospects for coexistence.
Livestock losses to predators are high in the region; 53% of
interviewees reported livestock losses to predators the previous
year. Commercial ranchers were willing to tolerate losses of
between 4 - 8 head of stock before killing the responsible predator, and community members were unwilling to lose more than
one head of stock.
We asked interviewees how their tolerance for predators
could be improved, and the two most common responses we
received were to give value to predators through ecotourism and
through trophy hunting. Photographic tourism has been successful in the region, and interest remains high among overseas
visitors to experience Kenya’s wildlife and human cultures (e.g.,
Masaai).
Much of Laikipia is gifted with healthy wildlife populations,
though this is not the case for the entire region, and not for most
of Kenya’s unprotected areas. Areas without easily viewable
densities of wildlife (e.g., in heavily grazed livestock areas) may
not be able to attract photographic tourists. Another problem with
relying on ecotourism alone to provide financial incentive for
conservation is that photographic tourists tend to avoid travelling
to areas experiencing political instability, as experienced by
Kenya following terrorist bombings in past years.
When we asked for thoughts on legalizing trophy hunting in
Kenya, older community members tended to be in favour of trophy hunting, mentioning benefits brought through employment.
Younger community members were split in their views. For example, respondents involved in ecotourism were concerned that
trophy hunting would kill all wildlife and leave nothing to show
photographic tourists. One important finding was that reinstating
trophy hunting was not considered an ethical issue, contrary to
beliefs by groups trying to keep the ban on trophy hunting.
Locals’ concerns about the possible impacts of hunting on
wildlife populations suggest lack of knowledge of current practices in neighbouring countries, including quota systems with
very low offtakes from wildlife populations. This kind of misconception is perhaps not surprising given that hunting has been
banned for 30-years, was poorly-regulated in the past, and is
maligned by misinformation in the Kenya press. Such concerns
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Continued from Page 22
Predator Conservation and Hunting in Kenya by Dr Stephanie Romañach
might be assuaged by raising awareness of the low impact of
trophy hunting on wildlife populations, and of the importance of
hunting to conservation in other African countries.
Trophy hunting has been successful in creating incentives
for wildlife conservation on communal lands in countries such as
Namibia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. In Namibia, for example,
vast areas of community lands are being converted into wildlife
conservancies, due largely to the potential financial benefits
available from wildlife via trophy hunting.
There are problems associated with the trophy hunting industry in Africa, which not only tarnish the image of the industry,
but are also commonly used by animal rights groups in Kenya to
lobby for support for retention of the ban on hunting. However,
one of the major problems with the hunting industry is one that is
also common to ecotourism; there is a need for improvement in
revenue sharing from hunting such that benefits reach community members living with wildlife.
The ability to derive income from wildlife can improve prospects for wildlife conservation. Currently, this is not an option in
Kenya because wildlife belongs to the state. My findings stress
the potential for allocating user rights over wildlife to local citizens as a means for benefits to offset losses from human-wildlife
conflict. These findings are timely because they coincide with
Kenya’s wildlife policy review. A draft of the new policy has been
created and includes these ideas. The proposed policy will be
put to vote, possibly by June 2007.
I have presented the results from my interviews twice in
Kenya in attempts to let Kenyans know about options for deriving benefits from wildlife, and to provide examples of the workings of the trophy hunting industry elsewhere in Africa. Wildlife
policy makers should be urged to consider options for Kenya’s
citizens to benefit from wildlife, thus providing incentives for conservation.
Detailed findings from this study are published in the April 2007
edition of Oryx - The International Journal of Conservation under
the title ‘Determinants of attitudes towards predators in central
Kenya and suggestions for increasing tolerance in livestock
dominated landscapes’.
“The basic idea of a trophy is the pursuit of an
animal that has grown to maturity by having
survived both nature's limitations and many
hunting seasons. The pursuit of such an animal
limits the hunter's chances of taking an animal
because there are few of them in a population.
Testing your skill as a hunter by restricting
yourself to the pursuit of these uncommon, individual animals elevates your personal standard.”
Jim Posewitz
Page 23
The Rowland Ward Guild of
Field Sportsmen
By Peter Flack, Chairman, Rowland Ward
“To hunt is a privilege not a right. The Rowland Ward
Guild of Field Sportsmen brings together likeminded
field sportsmen who believe in maintaining and upholding a Code of Ethics in Field Sports, who hope
to encourage and actively guide and teach the youth,
who regard as a priority the improvement of the environment and who want to conduct the sport with
great care and consideration in order to preserve the
sport for those that follow.”
Let me say at the outset, that I am not one of those people
who can say, “If I had to live my life over, I would do it exactly
the same”. Quite simply, I have made far too many mistakes
(many of which I deeply regret) to make such a statement. The
same goes for my hunting life and, I confess that I have both
done things, sometimes in the heat of the moment which, in
retrospect, I should not have done, and have also omitted to do
things which I should have done. For example, especially when
I was younger, I took shots at game that I should never have
tried and I unnecessarily wounded some wonderful animals. I
can also remember, I am ashamed to say, more than one
wounded animal which escaped me. In the early pre-dawn
darkness these animals sometimes march through my mind’s
eye and, when they do, sleep is not something that follows. As
such, I don’t want to appear holier than thou and as if I wash in
cold water Omo each night. I don’t.
Nevertheless, I do want to ask you this, when you first
watched the infamous “canned lion” video that those two ugly
characters, Cooke and MacDonald, effectively combined to produce, what was your reaction? Anger? Embarrassment? Frustration that, as a hunter, you were, once again, unfairly tarred
with the same brush as those in the video who were also described as hunters even though there was clearly no hunting of
any kind involved? Killing, yes. Shooting, yes. But definitely no
hunting! Certainly, my feelings changed to bewilderment as most
of the hunting associations to which I belonged failed to deal
with the matter swiftly and in a clear and unequivocal manner.
The Professional Hunters Association of South Africa
(“PHASA”) seemed to take forever to disassociate themselves,
and then only half heartedly, from the incidents portrayed in the
video, and the rumor quickly circulated that the reason behind
their tardy and ineffectual conduct was that MacDonald was not
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
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Continued from Page 23
The Rowland Ward Guild of Field Sportsmen by Peter Flack
the only member to have engaged in such conduct in the past. I
did not know whether to believe the rumors or not.
What did you think when the news was first published in a
national newspaper that a member of the executive committee of
a national hunting association was alleged to have imported
elephant tusks illegally into the country? Then there was the
case of senior members of an international hunting organization
being accused of “hunting” elephant from a helicopter in Mozambique. There’s that misuse of the word again.
I hunted with a senior African professional hunter who told
me how he had recently refunded the safari costs to a member
of the executive committee of a major international hunting organization to which I belong. After hunting for a grand total of
three days without success, he insisted that the professional
hunter hire local villagers to drive the game to him. When the
professional hunter refused, the committee member threw a
temper tantrum along with various items of crockery and cutlery.
I know it is guilt by association but I felt ashamed that I belonged to the same body as this spoilt, unethical, little brat.
What makes the matter even worse, is that although the facts of
the incident were widely known, the individual went on to hold
even higher office in the organization. What sort of message did
this send to other members, to youngsters, to beginners? Was
there one set of rules for politically well connected members and
another set for the rest?
Certain of our local hunting institutions are no better and I
know of one where the political infighting became so severe that
telephones were tapped, meeting rooms bugged and the funds
of the body misused to provide sheltered and unnecessary employment for certain sad sacks who were unable to make a living
in the private sector.
And what about those people who drive through the veld
blazing away at animals from the back of a bakkie? Or those
who sit in well concealed hides at waterholes or overlooking well
established game paths? The whole sorry point of this sad diatribe is that all the people involved are called hunters by the
outside world and, in particular, the media.
I know that I think the same as many millions of genuine
hunters out there. We know our passion, our pursuit, is under
threat from animal rightists and others. We know that these
organizations are working hard to win the hearts and minds of
many urbanites, in particular, using horrible examples such as
those described above to do so. We know that if they win here
in South Africa it will be the death knell for the hunting and conservation efforts in our country which has seen land under wildlife in private hands grow to cover nearly three times the area of
all provincial and national parks combined. And this area continues to grow at the rate of approximately 500,000 ha p a.
Since the 1950s, we have seen our population of Bontebok
recover from as low as 19 in number to a healthy huntable population of over 3 500. Similarly, white rhino have recovered from
as few as 28 to nearly 12 000, Cape mountain zebra from about
11 to some 1 100, black wildebeest from about 34 to over 22
000. It will not escape the reader that those animals that have
been hunted most assiduously have recovered best! It has, in
Page 24
fact, been empirically established that hunting has been the
primary cause behind these major conservation success stories.
And yet, the unethical, disgusting behavior of a few shameless
individuals chips away and damages the fabric of all this good
work and many other conservation initiatives based on sustainable and consumptive utilization.
So what can we the ordinary hunters do about the threats to
our sport and the conservation and other industries which it supports? I remember shortly after the “canned lion” video was first
shown on T.V., discussing the matter with a member of
PHASA’s executive committee. I said that I thought that the first
genuinely ethical hunting organization to be established would
suck members away from the organizations described at the
beginning of this article like a hot and thirsty man drinking a cold
drink through a straw.
Shortly afterwards, I learnt that Robin Halse, doyen of the
Eastern Cape hunting fraternity, and Rodney Kretzschmar, one
of South Africa’s leading taxidermists, had made an attempt to
convert PHASA into such an institution. They failed. They
based their attempts on a set of guidelines produced by Robin,
the late Steve Smith (who in his lifetime was a well-respected
professional hunter and originator of the Uncle Stevie Award for
the professional hunter who produced the best trophy in South
Africa), and Chappie Sparks, a well-known Eastern Cape hunter.
The aims and objectives which these four eminent sportsmen wanted to achieve were the following:
Aims and objectives
1. To maintain, uphold and propagate by example a Code of
Ethics in Field Sports which has been handed down over
many generations.
2. To actively encourage, guide and teach the youth interested
in field sports in the knowledge that they, the sportsmen of
the future, will carry on the tradition.
3. To regard as a priority the conservation and improvement of
the environment by both fellow sportsmen and owners of
the land and make every effort to influence both the public
and the authorities in these matters.
4. To conduct the sport with great care and consideration in
order to preserve the sport for those that follow.”
The Code of Conduct which they wanted to institute in order
to help give effect to these aims is set out below:
Code of Conduct
1. That at all times a member will extend every courtesy, privilege and assistance to a fellow field sportsman.
2. All hunting be conducted only during the hours of daylight.
3. That no creature be hunted for sport in an enclosed area of
such size that such creature is not self-sufficient.
4. That no shooting take place from, or within a short distance
of a vehicle, nor the use of vehicles to drive game.
5. That only firearms of such power and caliber that are capable of killing game quickly and efficiently at practical ranges
be employed.
6. That all forms of competition in the field between Sportsmen whilst hunting and fishing be avoided.
7. That no creature be killed for sport, that is deemed to be
immature, breeding or dependant and cannot, by virtue of
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Continued from Page 24
The Rowland Ward Guild of Field Sportsmen by Peter Flack
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
its trophy or flesh, be fully utilized.
That every effort is made to respect and safeguard the
property of the landowner.
That a landowner-member extent every courtesy, comfort
and assistance possible to a member who hunts or fishes
on his property.
That a Professional Hunter/Guide-member makes sure that
his clients understand, and are fully aware of the Guild’s
code of Ethics and Standards that will be upheld during the
course of any hunt.
That a Sportsman respects with understanding, the attitudes, feelings and principles of those that do not engage in
activities of Field sport.
That a Sportsman should conduct his sport with due regard
to his own physical capabilities, recognize his limitations
and responsibility to his companions or assistants.
The Guild recognizes that ‘culling’, ‘cropping’, ‘trapping’,
‘capture’ and vermin control are a necessary part of game
management as long as they are conducted with consideration and humane treatment of the wildlife involved. However, at no time can these activities be regarded in the context of Field Sports.”
But the Code is to be a living set of rules and as is stated in
the membership application form:
“The interpretation and implementation of a Code of
Conduct and the standards a Sportsman sets will depend
on each individual Sportsman’s conscientious behavior,
and whilst many traditional manners must be upheld, many
present day practices should be examined and evaluated.
Above all it must be accepted that it is a privilege to hunt,
not a right. To this end, therefore, the Guild considers that
certain broad rules governing the conduct of Field Sport
should be observed, and that it is irrelevant whether some
of these basic rules are, or are not legally applied by current
laws of the land.”
After Steve Smith’s untimely death in a motor vehicle accident, the Halse family acquired from his estate the rights to the
world famous Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game, housed in
Rowland Ward Publications. The business is currently managed
by Robin’s daughter, Jane, from the company’s offices in Houghton, Johannesburg and, together, due to popular pressure, they
have decided to lend the name and weight of the Rowland Ward
organization to the establishment of just the type of hunting and
conservation organization so urgently needed in South Africa, in
particular, and Africa, in general.
In response to the appeal from many hunters, Rowland
Ward has published membership application forms to Rowland
Ward’s Guild of Field Sportsmen. Of course, the Guild is currently in its infancy and much will depend on how many serious,
honest and ethical hunters are prepared to put their money
where their mouths are. I have no doubt that the response will
be overwhelming. The Guild starts life with a number of advantages. Unlike so many other hunting organizations, it is untainted by any scandal. It is committed to upholding the highest
ethical standards. It has the world famous Rowland Ward brand
Page 25
name to help market membership in the Guild. It has the offices
and permanent staff of Rowland Ward to initiate the administration of the organization and it has credible leadership in the form
of Robin Halse.
The initial membership benefits include a Guild tie or cap,
special offers on Rowland Ward books and a bi-annual magazine which, knowing Rowland Ward Publications as I do, is sure
to be of a high standard, if for no other reason than it will start
with a wide, international circulation which is sure to appeal to
advertisers. In due course, once the Record Book is made available via the internet, which is scheduled for later this year, Guild
members will have access to it at much reduced rates.
The Guild is clearly not for everyone. In my discussions with
Robin Halse he made it crystal clear that the Code of Conduct is
central to and contains the pillars upon which the Guild is to be
built. Unlike many ethical codes, which appear to be honored
more in their breach than in obedience thereto, the Code of
Conduct is to be firmly policed and upheld and the Guild will not
shy away from terminating memberships where there are material breaches of the Code. In fact, each member is obliged to
sign a form indemnifying the Guild from legal proceedings in the
event he is sanctioned for misbehavior.
What it is not, as yet, is an accredited hunting association
which South African hunters and sports shooters are now
obliged to join in terms of the Firearms Control Act. As such, the
Guild membership must be seen as a necessary adjunct to
membership of such a body.
In my opinion however, the formation of something like a
Guild of Field Sportsman is long overdue. Genuine hunters want
and need an association based on honest, ethical and fair rules
and regulations, impartially and fairly policed by a decent body of
men, openly and democratically elected by their peers. Built on
this foundation - and there are few if any organizations which
can grow and prosper over the long term if they are built on any
other type of foundation – the Guild can offer a home to those
who genuinely have hunting at heart and who want to be able to
hold their heads up high and proudly proclaim that they are not
only hunters but hunters who belong to an organization with
impeccable, authentic and traditional hunting roots, which not
only upholds our ancient sport and profession but which stands
for all that is good and right in this regard. And if this sounds
idealistic, well, then so be it.
The vision is there. It is for those like minded individuals who
have been hankering for such a body and who share these
views to step forward. It will be for those individuals to provide
the flesh and blood and funds to clothe the bare bones set out
by Robin, Steve and Chappie. To my mind, all new ideas have a
proper time and place in which they should be launched and the
time and place for the Guild is now. If you are a genuine, ethical
hunter who shares the aims and objectives of the Guild, please
join - the African continent needs you.
For a membership application form for the Rowland
Ward’s Guild of Field Sportsmen please contact Jane Halse
[email protected]
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Hunting for Trophies
By Raymond Lee, President, Foundation for North American
Wild Sheep (FNAWS) & International Sheep Hunters’ Association (ISHA)
Hunting Programs
Humans have pursued wild animals since the very dawn of
man. Early hunters secured their food, clothing, and tools from
the animals they harvested. Human social structures were
formed around hunter/gatherer groups; with status within the
group often determined by one’s success at acquiring food. As
millennia passed, hunting continued to provide sustenance.
However, due to changes in agricultural production, advances in
food storage technology, and cultural changes in society, the life
giving essence of hunting also changed. No longer was it absolutely necessary for a person to hunt for their immediate food.
Hunting came to be considered as recreational, or a sporting
activity. While there are still some passionate individuals who
would say that they hunt to live – it is probably more accurate to
say that they live to hunt. Many authors have written on man’s
connections with wildlife through the challenges of the hunt.
A more modern form of hunting is that practiced by the conservation hunter. This is the person who uses hunting as a
means to help support wildlife conservation and promote professional wildlife management. These hunters pay, sometimes
huge fees, for the opportunity to pursue an animal – with the
knowledge (hope) that some of the fee will go to help wildlife
conservation efforts and to support the local community. Programs like this exist in North America, Africa, and Asia. For
these programs to be successful there must be a reasonable
return of money to the central government, to the state/provincial
government, to the local community, and to wildlife conservation.
A $50,000 hunt fee should certainly be able to provide a little
something for each of these levels.
Rather than, or in addition to, the more common charitable
gifts, these philanthropists make their donations to enhance
wildlife. These donations can easily surpass $100,000 for a
single hunting opportunity. These opportunities offer no guarantee of taking an animal. In fact, on a number of these hunts, the
hunter/donor chooses not to harvest an animal. The North
American model of wildlife management, where hunters pay to
support wildlife conservation efforts, is augmented by these contributions. The Foundation for North American Wild Sheep,
alone, has generated over $30,000,000 through this fundraising
process. These funds have allowed the Foundation and its partners to increase wild sheep numbers in North America from
fewer than 50,000 in 1975 to over 200,000 animals today. A
significant benefit of these programs in the inclusion of the local
community. Typically, locals are used to help guide hunters,
locate game, and assist in the hunting camps. This gives the
individuals involved with the hunts a job – thus greatly enhancing
Page 26
their self-respect and their respect for wildlife. This also leads to
local efforts to manage and to protect their animals. Thus the
hunting programs lead directly to local social benefits (such as
health care and education) and to wildlife conservation benefits.
Keeping Score
Since the earliest cave paintings, man has depicted the largest animal specimens in their art. This desire to take the largest
animals is not directly related to food quantity, but to the challenge of acquisition. Taking a larger, older aged, presumably
more wary animal has always been a challenge. And man has
always liked challenges.
As hunting reached the recreational stage, seeking out older,
larger animals became the more desired approach to hunting.
Following the huge declines in wildlife populations, it was considered more sporting to pass over the young and the females
and to take only a limited number of “trophies.” This change
also led to the end of unregulated meat harvesting and to the
initiation of the tenets of fair chase. In the United States this
occurred in the end of the 19th Century and was heralded in by
the formation of the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887. Subsequently groups like Safari Club International and the Foundation
for North American Wild Sheep were organized by hunters who
wanted to share their experiences with others, and to give back
to the animals they so enjoyed pursuing.
As this practice of trophy hunting became more popular, it
also became more competitive. It therefore became necessary
to develop a method for assessing the “quality” of a trophy. The
Boone and Crockett Club developed their first records book in
1932. They conducted their first scoring competition in 1947. In
1950, they combined the systems of Grancel Fitz and of James
Clark into their new Official Scoring System.
Humans, being competitive by nature, developed a variety of
scoring methods, with perhaps the most common being the
Boone and Crockett system and the SCI system. The primary
difference between the two is that the Boone and Crockett system rewards symmetry, while the Safari Club International system rewards gross size. These systems are both complex
measuring systems to determine the total mass of the feature
considered most admirable about the trophy, i.e., horns for
sheep, antlers for deer, and skulls for bears. These scoring systems have proven helpful in wildlife management as declines in
trophy quality may indicate over harvest, while increases would
allow for greater levels of harvest. Decreases can also be affected by diet, climate, and disease – all factors of interest for
the professional manager. The ability to compare scores by
geographic area and through time is of value to many wildlife
biologists studying environmental changes and their impacts.
As time has passed there have been more and more trophy
books produced and a surfeit of hunting awards invented. Many
of these trophy books are produced to stimulate interest in hunting, and to enrich the individuals producing the books. At this
time, many individual states in the United States have their own
trophy books, with many for individual groups of animals (the
deer family represented by “Bucks and Bulls” being most common). Individual organizations also produce their own record
books to promote their interests, such as the Mountain Hunter
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Continued from Page 26
Hunting for Trophies by Ray Lee
Record Book produced by the Guide and Outfitter Association of
British Columbia. To be recognized in this book, you must have
hunted with a member of the Association.
More modern awards promote the experience of the hunt
and the contributions of the hunter over the mere harvesting of
trophies. The International Sheep Hunters Association, for example, presents just 2 awards at their annual meeting. These
awards are based on: (Super Slammer Award) the difficulty of
the hunts, the weapon of choice, and the quality of the animals
harvested – not necessarily the total number of sheep taken. It
is a tribute to a person that shares the values of fair chase hunting, supports wildlife conservation, is a good ambassador for
hunting, and has a sterling reputation in the sheep hunting fraternity; and (International Hunter Award) is based not only upon
the recipients honoring the tenets of fair chase hunting, but it is
for conducting themselves in a manner that does honor to both
themselves and their country. The recipient is involved in conservation projects, promotes the benefits of hunting to political
figures and government officials, and presents a pro-hunting
image.
Public Opinion
Various opinion polls of the general public demonstrate a
tolerance for, and even some support for, recreational hunting.
Trophy hunting, in its strictest sense, however, is not well supported. It will require hunters to send a stronger conservation
message to allow for the continued practice of purely trophy
hunting – where typically only the trophy parts are retained by
the hunter for display and recognition, and the edible portion is
left for others. The ethics of the conservation hunter will be very
important to the future of hunting. As long as the public sees a
conservation value from hunting and feels that hunters respect
their game, hunting will continue to enjoy the support of the public. Hunting opportunities will likely cease when hunting practices are no longer consistent with public values.
The ultimate trophy animals – certainly the ones that garner
the most interest and produce the most money - are wild sheep.
China, for example, could be one of the greatest recipients of
financial support from conservation hunters. There are numerous wild sheep species in this country – the very popular Argaliforms, comprised of the Asiatic bighorns (ammon types) and
central Asiatic thin horns (polii forms). However, the on-again,
off-again hunting policies have certainly had their impacts upon
the popularity of China’s hunting programs. In addition, due to a
disconnect with the public, China’s hunting programs were recently terminated. It will take convincing this public that sufficient
biological information exists to support the harvest and that appropriate conservation values will be protected to restart hunting.
Perhaps the most modern, and least desired, outcome of
trophy competitions is the “artificial” production of trophies. By
manipulating diet, genetics, and activity, it is possible to produce
unnatural sized animals. Growing trophies is anathema for conservation hunters. This sort of manipulation of trophies will certainly not stand up to public scrutiny, and should not be sanctioned by the hunting community.
Page 27
SCI Record Book of Trophy
Animals: Documenting the
Hunting Heritage
By R. Douglas Yajko, MD, Chairman, SCI Trophy Records
Committee
The Safari Club International measuring system was developed by SCI founder and Chairman C.J. McElroy in 1977. Mac
as he was known in those days had a vision of providing a record book for SCI members the scoring system was developed
for use in the SCI Record Book of Trophy Animals.
The record book quickly gained notoriety with the members
and began to evolve into what it is today. The largest change
occurred in 1993, giving more emphasis to mass for antlered
game. Since that time, all entries for deer, elk and other antlered
game have been measured under the new system. The new
books have more than 134,000 entries in a four-volume set,
including a two volume set of Africa, North America and Rest of
the World pages. Encompassing 29 years, this record book is
the epitome of an international record book. It includes species,
categories, maps, taxonomy and all internal boundaries. We are
continuing to refine the distinction between free range and estate
animals, and this book will include both categories for all continents except Africa. The previous editions, edited by C.J.
McElroy, John Brandt, Al Cheramie, Jack and Casey Schwabland, Irvin Barnhart, and me, show progressive and dramatic
growth over the past 29 years.
The new edition continues to recognize the increasing international character of SCI. Federal laws in the U.S. prohibit taking
of species designated as “endangered.” However, game laws
vary from country to country. So, we now list animals that are
legally taken and then exported legally from the country where
they are taken to the homes of members of SCI and other countries where these stringent rules do not apply. We also list endangered species that were taken prior to the passage of the
endangered species law.
The goal of the SCI Record Book is to provide an accurate
and complete natural history of the world’s game animals. It also
records in a regular and timely way the trophies that define contemporary hunting throughout the world.
The Trophy Records Committee is committed to using the
record book to market SCI through taxidermists, meat processors, outfitters, guides and booking agents throughout the world.
A concerted effort is being made to increase the measurers’
network, making it much easier for SCI members and potential
members to have their animals scored. SCI members can now
locate an official SCI measurer near them by visiting
www.scifirstforhunters.org and clicking on the Trophy Records
Continued on Page 28
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Continued from Page 27
SCI Record Book of Trophy Animals: Documenting the Hunting Heritage by
Douglas Yajko, MD
icon on the home page. Documenting the Hunting Heritage is
the primary focus of the SCI Record Book of Trophy Animals.
The minimums are lower in the SCI Record Book to encourage
more hunters to submit their trophies and provide us with a better picture of the distribution of wildlife.
The Latest edition to the SCI Record Book of Trophy Animals is the Virtual Record Book. Now hunters from around the
world can research a hunt prior to booking their hunt. The Virtual
Record Book has many sort functions allowing hunters to sort
the records by species and location or by species and guides.
For example if a hunter is planning his or her first trip to Namibia
for Gemsbok and other plains game they can go into the virtual
record and pull up all gemsbok taken in Namibia and view the
score sheets to see what the horn length and base circumferences are on mature animals. After learning about the species
the hunter can then sort the Gemsbok entries by guide/outfitter
determining who SCI members rely on the most when traveling
to Namibia.
A free demo of the virtual record book can be viewed by
clicking the following link: http://www.scirecordbook.org/demo.
An annual subscription is required for the SCI Virtual Record
Book and is available to non-members as well as SCI members.
Pictures of the species taken are being gradually added to the
Virtual Record Book. The Trophy Records Committee is
planning to add the taxinomic notes, diagrams and maps to the
Virtula Record Book in 2008.
The magnitude of producing the record book presents many
challenges that require careful judgment and an enormous
amount of work to provide this tremendous service for SCI
members. In May 2005, updated and state-of-the-art software
was implemented. The records in this edition are much cleaner
than in past volumes; however, there is a lot of work to be completed for future editions of the record book. Volunteers on the
Trophy Records Committee and the staff at SCI headquarters in
Tucson, Arizona, put in the time and effort because we love and
believe in what the book represents. The book is not just a list of
trophies, but a conservation tool to use in hunting camps
throughout the world. We are striving to print the most accurate
and informative record books in the industry and wants to thank
the members of SCI for adding their personal trophies to the
book, hunters from around the world benefit from the data
printed in the record books.
“In a moment of decision the best thing
that you can do is the right thing. The
worst thing you can do is nothing!”
Theodore Roosevelt
Founder of the Boone & Crockett Club
Page 28
Boone and Crockett Club:
Fair Chase and Conservation
Since 1887
By Jack Reneau, Director Big Game Records, Boone and
Crockett Club
The Mission of the Boone and Crockett Club
It is the policy of the Boone and Crockett Club to promote
the guardianship and provident management of big game and
associated wildlife in North America and to maintain the highest
standards of Fair Chase and sportsmanship in all aspects of big
game hunting, in order that this resource of all the people may
survive and prosper in its natural habitats. Consistent with this
objective, the Club supports the use and enjoyment of our wildlife heritage to the fullest extent by this and future generations of
mankind.
Formation of the Boone and Crockett Club
Theodore Roosevelt, a dedicated sportsman and visionary,
founded the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887. In 1883, Roosevelt, an avid hunter, outdoorsman, and explorer returned from
his ranching days in North Dakota with a mission. He had witnessed first-hand the negative affect on big game populations
from unchecked exploitation. He called a meeting of several of
his friends who shared his passion for the outdoors. One of
these gentleman hunters, George Bird Grinnell, described this
gathering as “an association of men bound together by their
interest in game and fish, to take charge of all matters pertaining
to the enactment and carrying out of laws on the subject.”
Successful men of science, business, industry, politics, and
public service, had joined together out of their common concern
for dwindling wildlife populations and irresponsible land use, to
conserve wild resources for the future. Because of the dedication of these respected leaders and riflemen hunters, this meeting eventually resulted in the foundation for the greatest conservation revolution in the history of mankind and the survival of our
hunting heritage.
B&C First for Conservation
When Roosevelt took office in 1901 the contemporary thinking on natural resource matters was that of “protection” and
“preservation.” Through his discussions with Grinnell “conservation” became the keynote of his administration. The word soon
appeared in dictionaries defined as “prudent use without waste.”
Roosevelt’s administration produced a federal natural resource
program that was balanced between economic development and
aesthetic preservation, setting aside and protecting 150 million
acres of national forests. In seven years, more progress was
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Boone & Crockett Club: Fair Chase & Conservation since 1883 by Jack
Reneau
made in natural resource management than the nation had seen
in a century, or has seen since.
Throughout the 20th century, Roosevelt and the hunterconservationists of the Boone and Crockett Club continued to
make significant contributions to wildlife and environmental welfare. Some of these early accomplishments of Club members
include:
• The establishment of game laws, the enforcement of
hunting seasons and bag limits;
• The abolishment of market hunting practices;
• The protection of Yellowstone National Park and the
establishment of Glacier and Denali National Parks;
• The establishment of the National Park Service, National Forest Service, and the National Wildlife Refuge
System;
• Passing of the 1894 and 1900 Lacey Acts, Federal Aid
to Wildlife Restoration (Pittman-Robertson) Act, the
Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, Migratory Bird Act
of 1913, the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act of 1934,
and the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit Program.
Boone and Crockett Club Members were so effective that
their conservation history, commissioned to be written in 1960,
was so nearly a complete history of the conservation movement
that it was expanded to include non-Club related items. This
history was detailed in James B. Trefethen’s book, An American
Crusade for Wildlife, which has been accepted as a landmark
text for conservation.
The Rules of Fair Chase
In a land of abundance, free-spirited pioneers and outdoorsmen were naturally resistant to change, new laws, and
limits. Early European law mandated that all wildlife belonged to
the crown; therefore, American pioneers shunned anything that
resembled old-world restrictions.
As indicated in Roosevelt’s master plan, a set of guidelines
had to be established. An ethical code of conduct for all sportsmen was required. If wildlife was to survive, and for “conservation” (wise use) to prevail over “preservation” (non-use) sportsmen must lead the charge. With the leadership of Roosevelt, the
Boone and Crockett Club’s “Fair Chase” tenants encouraged
laws in the states and provinces to maintain sport hunting at a
high level of sportsmanship and ethical action. This “Fair Chase”
code directly engaged the hunters’ conscience to enjoy hunting
in an ethical fashion. Born from these efforts were the concept of
public stewardship and the realization that wildlife did indeed
belong to the people.
Throughout its existence, the Boone and Crockett Club
never skirted thorny issues. Changing the culture and thinking of
the American sportsmen, was perhaps, one of the most difficult,
yet significant, accomplishments of the Club. The Club’s Fair
Chase statement provided the foundation for hunter ethics, as
we know them today. The public image of the hunter was raised
to that of a sportsman – one who can kill, yet protect and nurture
what is taken.
They Belong to All
Page 29
One of the early challenges facing the Club, and a successful launch of the conservation movement was the disconnect that
existed between citizens and wildlife. This disconnect was held
over from the old days of European rule – no public ownership of
wildlife. To bring the public into the realization that wildlife in the
“new country” did indeed belong to them and was in their care,
the Club went into action with two major initiatives – the protection of Yellowstone National Park and the establishment of the
National Collection of Heads and Horns.
From the Club’s first formal meetings a plan was initiated to
save Yellowstone National Park (the Nation’s first national park)
from poachers, mining and timber speculators, and the Northern
Pacific Railroad, which was lobbying to gain a right of way west,
through the Park. “Resolve that a committee of 5 be appointed
by the chair to promote useful and proper legislation toward the
enlargement and better Government of Yellowstone.” A single
resolution, in a single sentence, but it marked the beginning of
the Boone and Crockett Club’s conservation crusade.
Through a series of exposé editorials in Club member,
George Bird Grinnell’s Forest and Stream magazine, the public
was drawn into the cause. The dramatic telling of a bisonpoaching incident within the pages of Forest and Stream was a
national sensation that focused public attention and outcry on
the serious plight of Yellowstone. Sportsmen, nature lovers, and
those who planed to someday visit the Park finally said, “No
more.” In 1894 the Yellowstone Protection Act (Lacey Act of
1894) was pushed through Congress by Club Member, Senator
John F. Lacey. The laws gave Yellowstone the staff, funding,
protection, enforcement, and penalties for violations it needed to
be maintained as pristine national treasure for all people.
The National Collection of Heads and Horns was another
brainchild of the Club. It was a trophy exhibit opened for public
display in 1922 at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, in cooperation with the New York Zoological Society (also founded and
directed by several B&C Members) and the Bronx Zoo, of which
Club member, William T. Hornaday was its first Director. The
inscription over the entrance to the exhibit read “In Memory of
the Vanishing Big Game of the World.” The display sparked
public interest in big game animals, elevated the concept of public stewardship of wildlife, and created the momentum needed to
launch a conservation and recovery effort that saved many of
these great animals, and hunting itself from extinction.
Once the positive effects of the conservation movement began to pay dividends, the plight of big game animals was no
longer as much of a concern. Interest in the collection had
waned and the building, which housed the trophies, became
used for storage space. After a burglary in 1974 the Club rescued what remained of the collection and found a temporary
home for them at the national headquarters of the National Rifle
Association in Washington, D.C. In 1981 the collection was permanently moved to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody,
Wyoming, where it resides today as a testimonial to the success
of the North American Model of Conservation.
Why Keep Records
The grave condition our big game species were in at the turn
of the century had many responsible sportsmen wondering if
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Continued from Page 29
Boone & Crockett Club: Fair Chase & Conservation since 1883 by Jack
Reneau
these great animals would decline to the point of Audubon’s
bighorn sheep, and the eastern and Merriam’s elk – extinction.
Certain species of animal and bird life were vanishing and before
it was too late, a biological record of their historic range and
mere existence was needed. The Boone and Crockett Club
again accepted the challenge.
When the Club’s Executive Committee appointed Theodore
Roosevelt, Casper Whitney, and Archibald Rogers to the Club’s
first Records Committee in 1902 it wasn’t to develop a scoring
system for bragging rights, endorsements or what fees to charge
for the taking of a trophy. Their goal was a system to record
biological, harvest, and location data on the vanishing big game
animals of North America.
With the publishing of the first edition of Records of North
American Big Game in 1932, the Club set in motion a system
that would continue to elevate our native big game species to an
even higher plane of public stewardship. A by-product of this
book was an increased interest in trophy hunting, which subsequently motivates more hunters to become interested in the
conservation movement.
Records-keeping activities enabled the Club to promote its
doctrine of ethical hunting by accepting only those trophies taken
under “Fair Chase.” Through prestige received from the success
and acceptance of the Records Book, the Boone and Crockett
Club had the ability to forge a new understanding of species
biology and the need for the management of big game species.
When it was reported that the Club would reject cougar trophies entry into the records book from states that offered a
bounty for them, the result led to cougar being elevated to the
status of a big game animal. This allowed the cougar both management and protection such a classification warranted. This
same awareness and recognition became available to other
species such as the Central Canada barren ground caribou
found in the Northwest Territories. The declaration of a separate
records book category allowed caribou from parts of Northwest
Territories to become eligible for funding and management from
the government. These territories received a vital boost to their
economies from the sale of licenses, tags, and a new interest in
these great animals.
In Quebec, when complaints were received from hunters
about the practices of caribou outfitters and guides, the Boone
and Crockett Club contacted Quebec’s Game and Fish Department. If questionable hunting practices continued, the QuebecLabrador caribou would no longer be accepted for the Records
Book. As a result, ethical, Fair Chase hunting became the norm
rather than the exception.
Into The Second Century
Throughout its history the Boone and Crockett Club has
supported science, research, and education. In recognition of
the Club’s 100th anniversary, Club members committed to expand this purpose by purchasing the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch (TRM) in 1986. This 6,600-acre working cattle
ranch is located on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front adjoining
the Bob Marshall Wilderness and other privately owned ranches.
This region encompasses prime wildlife wintering grounds. Here,
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habitat research and land management practices present an
example to community ranchers demonstrating that diversified
populations of big game, even predators like grizzly bear and
cougar can be compatible with profits from ranching.
Open to the public each fall, the TRM Ranch, through a
Block Management agreement with the State of Montana, allows
people of all ages to hunt on the Ranch; however, special emphasis is given to youth hunters who must be accompanied by
an adult mentor. Hunting traditions will be preserved in the future
through hunter/mentor opportunities like those who enjoy the
privilege of participating in Fair Chase hunting, in natural, well
managed environments.
In 2001, the Boone and Crockett Club constructed the Elmer
E. Rasmussen Wildlife Conservation Education Center on the
Ranch. This Center serves as the headquarters for the Lee and
Penny Anderson Conservation Education programs. Using the
TRM Ranch as an outdoor classroom, the Club’s K-12 Education
Program helps students and teachers build lasting awareness,
understanding, and appreciation for the living and non-living
components of our natural world. Through the Conservation
Across Boundaries (CAB) program, teachers from across the
country are invited to participate in workshops where wildlife and
habitat conservation curriculum models are taught benefiting
both teachers and their students.
New Knowledge
History has proven there is no better investment in the future
than knowledge through education. In keeping with the Boone
and Crockett legacy of leadership, the Club launched a pilot
program in 1993. This program funds the research of university
graduate students who have chosen wildlife or natural resources
as their life’s work. The first B&C Endowed Professorship Chair
found its home at the epicenter of today’s resource challenges –
the Rocky Mountain West. Here, at the University of Montana in
Missoula, the Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Conservation plays a central role in the Club’s Conservation Program.
The Professor teaches, guides graduate student research, and
offers public service in the fields of wildlife conservation and
ecosystem management for sustainable development. By focusing on education at the highest level, the Club insures that investments made today will continues to pay dividends for decades as these students advance in their careers.
In 2005, success of this program in Montana was replicated
at Texas A&M University when a second chair was endowed.
The focus of this program is the impact of state and federal environmental regulations on private lands and wildlife populations;
the potential of consumptive and non-consumptive wildlife resource use on landowner income; and public perceptions of
private land stewardship and resource conservation. Other endowed professorships are planned at other universities throughout the U.S.
For more information about the Boone & Crockett Club and
the many activities it is involved in, call +1-406-542-1888 for
a free copy of the general Boone & Crockett Club brochure,
and visit the Boone & Crockett Club website at
http://www.booneandcrockettclub.com/.
For hunter-conservationists and all people who are interested in the
conservation, management and the sustainable use of Africa’s wild natural resources.
The distribution of African Indaba is supported by the CIC International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Force